go through Tom Bateman, State Department Correspondent
U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyU.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Cairo and Jerusalem in an attempt to drum up regional support for President Joe Biden’s recently unveiled draft Gaza peace deal.
The top U.S. diplomat made his eighth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war began, meeting with foreign leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Blinken said his message to leaders in the region was: “If you want a ceasefire, urge Hamas to say yes.”
Mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying for months to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
But Mr Netanyahu has also yet to endorse the U.S. proposal.
News of Blinken’s meeting with Netanyahu said the U.S. diplomat emphasized post-conflict planning in Gaza and the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading.
“He reiterated that the proposals on the table would open up the possibility of calm on Israel’s northern border and further integration with countries in the region,” the State Department said.
Israel’s prime minister has vowed to boycott any such deal until Hamas’s military and governance capabilities are destroyed and all hostages are released.
On Saturday, Israeli forces, backed by airstrikes, released four more prisoners after fierce gunfire with Hamas in and around the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said the attack killed 274 people, including children and other civilians. Israel said the operation killed less than 100 people.
After the attack, Hamas political leaders said the group would not agree to a ceasefire unless security was achieved for Palestinians.
Blinken used the trip to argue that Hamas was the only obstacle to the ceasefire-for-hostages agreement the United States desperately sought.
“Does Hamas want to end this conflict, the war it started? We will know,” he said.
“But it’s clear that almost the entire world has come together to support this proposal.”
The three-phase plan Biden laid out ten days ago would include a six-week permanent ceasefire and rebuilding Gaza with international aid.
The president called it an Israeli proposal in an effective attempt to move the two sides forward, with a text his administration claimed was “virtually identical” to one endorsed by Hamas last month.
Hamas is likely to demand assurances that the plan will lead to a permanent ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Doha’s political leadership has yet to formally respond to the proposal, so it remains to be seen whether indirect talks can resume, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.
On October 7, Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 251 people hostage.
Some 116 people remain in the Palestinian territories, of whom 41 are claimed dead by the military.
A deal struck in November saw Hamas release 105 hostages in exchange for a week-long ceasefire and the release of some 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Hamas’ health ministry said the death toll in Gaza has exceeded 37,000.
Although Biden proposed this peace initiative in the name of Israel, the United States also knows that Israel’s own fractious ruling coalition is very reluctant to implement the plan.
It has also led to outright opposition from some far-right ministers, who have threatened to trigger the collapse of the government if the deal progresses.
As a result, America’s top diplomat is caught in the thick of the Israeli political storm, and there are few signs that the truce proposal has broken through. Former general Benny Gantz resigned from the war cabinet on Sunday, deepening the sense of instability surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who the White House is angry at over the course of the war.
For officials in Washington, Mr. Gantz has become the go-to liaison. He resigned after giving Mr Netanyahu a June 8 deadline to meet his demands. Many of his objections to Netanyahu’s handling of the war — including the lack of any meaningful plan for governance in a post-Hamas Gaza — are very similar to those of the Biden administration.
On Sunday, Gantz accused the prime minister of putting political survival ahead of national interests, leaving Israel “unable to achieve a real victory.” Netanyahu countered that now was not the time for colleagues to withdraw but to “join forces.”
Gantz’s resignation pulls the Israeli government’s focus back to the far right, although it is unclear how his move will affect Washington’s pressure on Netanyahu, whose main goal remains to win support for an armistice agreement.
In Cairo, Blinken met with President Sisi, whose mediators he said were in contact with Hamas only hours before the talks.
A statement from the President’s Office stressed the need to remove obstacles to humanitarian aid to Gazans.
“Regardless of whether there is a deal or not, it remains absolutely essential that we get more aid to the Palestinians who need it,” Blinken told reporters after the meeting.
Mr Sisi has also been pressing for progress on the Rafah crossing.
Egypt’s gates are a lifeline for humanitarian aid into Gaza and the only international exit route for injured Palestinians, a handful of whom were able to leave Egypt for hospital treatment during the war. This is also the main route for international rescue teams in and out of Gaza.
The Rafah crossing has been closed since Israel seized and occupied it from Hamas forces last month, a move that angered Egypt’s leadership.
Egypt has been asking officials from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority to take control of the Rafah crossing, but Israel has so far rejected the move. The longer the standoff remains unresolved, the greater the risk of a crisis between Israel and Egypt.
