Israel Accepts Proposal to Bridge Differences on Cease-Fire, Blinken Says
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Monday that Israel had accepted a Biden administration proposal to bridge some remaining differences with Hamas on a cease-fire deal, as he pushed what he called “probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity” to secure a truce and free the remaining hostages in Gaza.
Mr. Blinken made the declaration after a nearly three-hour meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem. “In a very constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu today, he confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal — that he supports it,” Mr. Blinken told reporters. “It’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same.”
The statement put new pressure on Hamas, whose officials have called the proposal fundamentally slanted toward Israel, although the details have not been publicized.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official, said in a televised interview on Monday with Al Jazeera that Hamas had broadly accepted a framework for a cease-fire outlined by President Biden in late May. But he accused Mr. Netanyahu of introducing new conditions to that proposal and said Israeli officials had conceded nothing on key issues during a round of talks in Doha, Qatar, last week.
“If the U.S. administration was serious, we wouldn’t need more negotiations — only to implement Biden’s proposal,” Mr. Hamdan said.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the meeting with Mr. Blinken had been “positive” and that the prime minister had “reiterated Israel’s commitment to the current American proposal on the release of our hostages, which takes into account Israel’s security needs, which he strongly insists on.”
But Mr. Netanyahu, in his own videotaped remarks, focused mostly on Iran and its allied militias.
“I greatly appreciate the efforts that the U.S. is making in regional defense against the Iranian axis,” he said. “This is important, of course, for the State of Israel.” He added, “I also greatly appreciate the understanding that the U.S. has shown for our vital security interests as part of our joint efforts to bring about the release of our hostages.”
Despite the upbeat tone, some Israeli officials privately expressed skepticism that the American proposal would result in a breakthrough with Hamas.
Negotiations intended to finalize a deal were expected to resume in Egypt this week, after two days of high-level talks in Qatar ended on Friday without an immediate breakthrough. During last week’s talks, the United States, with the support of Egypt and Qatar, offered the bridging proposal to resolve some of the remaining differences between Hamas and Israel and avert a wider regional war.
Mr. Blinken called it “a decisive moment” in the monthslong push for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The talks have taken on added significance since an explosion on July 31 in Tehran, widely attributed to Israel, killed Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Hours earlier, an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a senior commander of Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese militia that, like Hamas, is backed by Iran.
Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate for the killings, and Israel has said it will respond powerfully to any attack on its territory, raising the specter of an escalating regional conflict.
Mr. Blinken and other mediators have not described what is contained in the bridging proposal. But U.S. officials have said it aligns with a cease-fire framework that Mr. Biden outlined on May 31 and that was later endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.
Under that three-phase plan, Hamas and its allies would free the remaining hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. The deal would eventually lead to the “cessation of hostilities permanently” and the rebuilding of Gaza.
It remained unclear how Israel and Hamas would resolve their remaining differences. Among other points of contention, Mr. Netanyahu has sought to have Israeli troops patrol the Gazan side of the territory’s border with Egypt to prevent Hamas from rearming during a cease-fire. Hamas has said it will not agree to any deal that does not involve the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Hamas did not participate directly in last week’s cease-fire talks in Qatar and has expressed deep frustration with the negotiations. On Sunday, the group said it had been briefed on the talks by mediators and “we once again came to the conclusion that Netanyahu is still putting obstacles in the way of reaching an agreement, and is setting new conditions and demands with the aim of undermining the mediators’ efforts and prolonging the war.”
Mr. Blinken acknowledged on Monday that the deal had not been finalized. He said, “The next important step is for Hamas to say yes, and then in the coming days, for all of the expert negotiators to get together” to work on ways to carry out the agreement.
“These are still complex issues, and they’re going to require hard decisions by the leaders,” Mr. Blinken added. “Ultimately, it comes down to those decisions. But there is, I think, a real sense of urgency here across the region on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible.”
Mr. Blinken also met with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, and its defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as with relatives of the hostages in Gaza. The families have been pressuring Mr. Netanyahu to agree to a deal that would free those who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
“We continue to urge all parties involved to sign an agreement as soon as possible,” the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters said in a statement after its members met with Mr. Blinken. “We cannot afford to waste this critical opportunity, which may be the last opportunity; time is running out for the hostages.”
As diplomats hoped a cease-fire in Gaza, or even the prospect of one, might persuade Iran to hold off or blunt its anticipated attack on Israel, Mr. Blinken offered an indirect warning to Tehran and Hezbollah.
“It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process,” he said. “And so 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.”
Hostilities between Israel and Hamas, meanwhile, have continued.
Hamas’s military wing and its ally, Islamic Jihad, took responsibility on Monday for what they said was a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Sunday night. The Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency said that a “powerful explosive” had detonated on a road in southern Tel Aviv. One passerby was injured, they said.
On Sunday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian journalist, Ibrahim Muhareb, bringing the total number of Palestinian journalists and news media workers killed since Oct. 7 to at least 123, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate said that Israeli tank fire had struck Mr. Muhareb and a group of his colleagues while they were wearing gear identifying them as press near Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At least 25 people have been killed by Israeli fire in central and southern Gaza since Sunday, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense. The Israeli military said on Monday that it had killed dozens of “terrorists” in Gaza and had struck facilities and infrastructure used by militants.
Anushka Patil, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
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