Ongoing negotiations ‘last opportunity’ to secure Gaza truce: Blinken

Jerusalem, Undefined – AFP

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken on Monday urged Israel and Hamas not to derail negotiations that he said may be a “last opportunity” to secure a Gaza truce and prisoner release deal.

Blinken, on his ninth regional tour since Israel launched its current war on Gaza in October last year, said he was back in Israel “to get this agreement to the line and ultimately over the line”.

“This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a cease-fire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” Blinken said as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.

The US secretary of state later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and is due to travel on Tuesday to Cairo where cease-fire talks are expected to resume this week.

Israel and Hamas blame each other for delays in reaching a truce accord, which diplomats say could help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East.

“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.

“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.”

Months of on-off talks with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.

But the stakes have risen since the late July killings of Iran-backed leaders, including Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip deepened.

Ahead of talks in Qatar last week, Hamas had called on mediators, rather than holding more negotiations, to implement a framework outlined in late May by President Joe Biden.

Biden said Sunday that a cease-fire was “still possible” and that the United States was “not giving up”, in brief comments to reporters.

– Trading blame –

After the Qatar meeting, the United States had submitted what mediators called a “bridging proposal”, which Hamas on Sunday said “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions” and includes terms that the Palestinian group would not accept.

Hamas insisted on “a permanent cease-fire and a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations.

It mentioned Netzarim junction, which sits between northern and southern Gaza, as well as the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor on the Hamas-ruled territory’s border with Egypt, which Israel sees as important for preventing the flow of weapons.

Netanyahu was “fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators”, the Palestinian movement said in a statement.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, in a post on social media platform X, called on Netanyahu to “not miss this opportunity” and “bring them back”.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s governing coalition oppose any truce.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has killed at least 40,099 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The plan announced by Biden at the end of May would freeze Israel’s attacks for an initial six weeks as Israelis held in Gaza were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid entered Gaza.

Israeli police said a blast in Tel Aviv late Sunday — shortly after Blinken landed — was a “terror attack” that wounded one person. The force had earlier reported that the explosion killed one person, who Israeli media said was the suspected assailant.