US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv, late Monday night, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an American “bridging proposition” on a Gaza ceasefire deal and that Hamas had to agree.
Blinken said to reporters that “it’s now incumbent upon Hamas to make the same” and with the help from mediators Egypt and Qatar, “come together and finish the process”, without saying if the concerns raised by the Hamas militants group had been addressed.
The Israeli military announced that six bodies had been recovered in Gaza.
Blinken made his ninth trip to the Middle East after the Gaza War broke out in October of 2023. The US, Egypt, and Qatar were all trying to finalize an agreement between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
Blinken, after leaving Israel, headed to Egypt and Qatar to continue negotiations.
The US presented a bridge proposal during the cease-fire talks last week in Doha. The discussions are expected to resume this week in Cairo. Blinken said that even if Hamas accepts this deal, there will still be “complex issues” that require “hard decisions from the leaders.”
Blinken replied, “We will never give up,” when asked if the time limit for the deal would eventually run out. He met with Netanyahu one-on-one for 2 1/2 hours.
A spokesperson for the Israeli government told reporters Monday that Netanyahu “stands firm by the principle” of the Israel Defense Forces maintaining a physical presence along the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, to prevent what the spokespersons described as the resupply with deadly weapons from Hamas.
There is a greater urgency to reach an agreement amid fears of regional escalation should Iran and its Lebanese proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, retaliate on Israel for the assassination in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a top Hezbollah official in Beirut.
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