Top US diplomat Antony Blinken has urged Hamas to accept a truce plan in Gaza, despite an Israeli warning that the army will continue fighting the Palestinian militant group after any ceasefire.
Mediators proposed a truce agreement that would suspend fighting for 40 days and exchange dozens of hostages for many more Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas said it would respond “within a very short period” to the proposal.
“Hamas needs to say yes and it needs to do this,” Blinken said Wednesday while in Israel on his seventh crisis trip to the Middle East since the war began in October.
He later added: “If Hamas truly intends to care about the Palestinian people and wants to see immediate relief from their suffering, it should accept this deal.”
Blinken spoke after visiting kibbutz Nir Oz, which Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, as well as Israel’s Kerem Shalom border crossing with Gaza and the port of Ashdod, which Israel says will be used for aid shipments.
A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, told AFP on Wednesday that the movement’s position on the truce proposal was “negative” for now, but that discussions were still ongoing.
The group’s goal remains “the end of this war,” a senior Hamas official, Suhail al-Hindi, told AFP – a goal that is at odds with the stated position of Israel’s aggressive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu promised to send Israeli ground forces to the city of Rafah, on the southern tip of Gaza, despite deep concerns about the fate of some 1.5 million civilians sheltering there.
“We will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions with or without a deal,” Netanyahu said this week.
UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that an Israeli attack on Rafah would be “an unbearable escalation, killing thousands of civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee.”
Netanyahu made his threat at a time of tensions between traditional allies, as the Gaza war sparked global anger and weeks of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on US college campuses.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that any operation in Rafah must “include a credible plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians and maintain the flow of humanitarian aid,” the Pentagon said Wednesday. fair.
– ‘Sustainable calm’ –
Negotiations on a potential truce and hostage release agreement to end the bloodiest war ever in Gaza were held in Cairo, involving mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar.
Hamas official Hindi, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, said there is “great interest from Hamas and all factions of the Palestinian resistance in ending this insane, all-consuming war against the Palestinian people.”
“But it will not be at any cost”, he added, stressing that the group “cannot under any circumstances raise the white flag or surrender to the conditions of the Israeli enemy”.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry called on all parties to “show the necessary flexibility” to reach an agreement “that stops the bloodshed of Palestinians”, during a visit to Cairo by his French counterpart, Stephane Sejourne .
Analysts doubted that Hamas would sign another temporary ceasefire, knowing that Israeli troops could resume their attack once it ended.
“I am pessimistic about the option of Hamas agreeing to a deal that does not include a permanent ceasefire,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
A source with knowledge of the negotiations said Israel’s proposal contained “real concessions”, including a period of “sustainable calm” after an initial lull in fighting.
– ‘More rubble than Ukraine’ –
The war began with the Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also took around 250 hostages. Israel estimates that 129 prisoners remain in Gaza, but the military says 34 of them are dead.
Israel’s massive retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,568 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.
Widespread bombing has left Gaza filled with “more rubble than Ukraine”, a UN agency said, warning that mine clearance efforts will be hampered by unexploded ordnance and toxic asbestos.
Israel also imposed a siege on Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants, which drastically restricted access to food, drinking water, medicine, fuel and energy.
UN agencies have warned that without urgent intervention, famine threatens Gaza, and the United States has also strongly urged Israel to speed up aid deliveries.
“Progress is real, but given the immense need in Gaza, it needs to be accelerated. It needs to be sustained,” Blinken said while visiting the port of Ashdod, reopened to aid after US appeals.
Blinken dispatched a Jordanian aid convoy heading to the newly reopened Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, and the US charity World Central Kitchen later said it had resumed work in Gaza.
The Israeli army confirmed that “for the first time since the start of the war, the Erez crossing was opened to the entry of humanitarian aid”.
Israel has faced increasing international pressure over its handling of the war, with Colombia announcing on Wednesday that it was cutting diplomatic ties – a move Israel said was a “reward” for Hamas.
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