US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has described ongoing negotiations as “maybe the last” chance to secure Israeli captives’ release and a Gaza ceasefire during a trip to Israel.
Speaking in Tel Aviv on Monday following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken said the Israeli leader, who has consistently said he won’t agree to a deal that brings the war to an end without the destruction of Hamas, has agreed to a “bridging proposal” put forward by the US.
“Just last week, the [US] president put forward a proposal with Qatar and with Egypt to try to bridge the gaps that remain between the parties so that we can get agreement to what the president put out there a couple months ago,” Blinken told reporters.
“In a very constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu today, he confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal, that he supports it. It is now incumbent on Hamas to do the same.”
Hamas has insisted that a ceasefire deal must result in a permanent end to the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. The news outlet Axios reported on Sunday that Hamas says the US proposal would give Israeli forces control of the “Netzarim Corridor”, which divides Gaza between north and south, as well as the Rafah Crossing and Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt.
Blinken did not broach those issues specifically. He added that the US is working with the Israeli government to address the spread of polio in Gaza, a crisis health groups have linked to conditions created by Israel’s offensive.
Hamas has said that the US is changing the contours of a previous proposal it had agreed to, after Israel rejected key details, in an effort to portray the Palestinian group, rather than Netanyahu, as the main obstacle to reaching an agreement.
“We will only agree to the implementation of Biden’s proposal, which we agreed to a few months ago,” Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera following Blinken’s remarks on Monday.
“The Israelis have retreated from issues included in Biden’s proposal. Netanyahu’s talk about agreeing to an updated proposal indicates that the US administration has failed to convince him to accept the previous agreement.”
While the US has insisted that it is exerting pressure to bring about a ceasefire, it has continued to send Israel massive weapons shipments despite allegations of widespread rights violations by Israeli forces in Gaza. Blinken did not clarify which changes have been made to the proposal that Netanyahu agreed to after rejecting previous deals.
“Today, Blinken told us he [Netanyahu] accepted the bridging proposals; he didn’t tell us what those bridging proposals are,” Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said following the US diplomat’s press conference. “Has Biden edited the ceasefire proposal to fit Netanyahu’s wishes, or are they the same proposals that were offered to the [United Nations] Security Council back in late May, and Netanyahu changed his mind?”
Diplomatic efforts
Earlier on Monday, before a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Blinken stressed the urgency of an agreement that could help calm regional tensions.
“This is a decisive moment – probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” he said, on what is his ninth trip to the region since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October.
“I’m here as part of an intensive diplomatic effort on President Biden’s instructions to try to get this agreement to the line and ultimately over the line … It is time for everyone to get to ‘yes’ and to not look for any excuses to say ‘no’,” Blinken added.
“It is time for it to get done. It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process,” he said.
The US and other Western nations have called on Iran and its allies to refrain from anticipated attacks on Israel in retaliation for the recent killings of senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Worldwide concern that Israel’s war will escalate into an all-out regional conflict multiplied after the assassinations last month of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Fuad Shukr, a top commander of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, in Beirut.
“We’re working to make sure that there is no escalation, that there are no provocations, that there are no actions that in any way could move us away from getting this deal over the line, or, for that matter, escalating the conflict to other places, and to greater intensity,” Blinken said.
Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said Israelis wanted to see the return “as soon as possible” of captives held in Gaza since October 7.
“There is no greater humanitarian objective, and there’s no greater humanitarian cause, than bringing back our hostages,” Herzog told Blinken.
The US, Egypt and Qatar have been acting as mediators in a number of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The last round of talks ended on Friday in Qatar, with no resolution. Negotiations are expected to resume again in Cairo, Egypt this week.
Hamas has been insisting that the ceasefire end the war permanently while Israel has said any deal should not limit it from continuing the war despite repeated US statements for the deal to end the conflict.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israel’s deadly attacks continue, with the death toll from Israel’s bombardment now more than 40,000, according to Palestinian health authorities.
