US secretary of state Antony Blinken says the onus is now on Hamas to accept American proposals to end the Gaza war after he was informed by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in talks in Jerusalem on Monday that Israel accepts the framework for a deal and is willing to send representatives to further discussions this week.
Speaking on his ninth visit to the region since the start of the war, Mr Blinken called on Hamas, which over the weekend rejected Washington’s proposals to bridge the gap between the two sides, to return to the talks.
“The parties have to come together to complete the process of reaching clear understandings about how they’ll implement the commitments that they’ve made under this agreement. The next important step is for Hamas to say yes,” Mr Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv, stressing that the US was deeply committed “to getting it done now”.
“This is a decisive moment, probably the best, maybe the last opportunity to get the hostages home. It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process.”
Ahead of Mr Biden’s talks in Jerusalem, Hamas had rejected the new framework, saying it conformed completely with Mr Netanyahu’s conditions and his refusal of a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas accused Israel of insisting on occupying the Netzarim corridor which divides the coastal enclave into two, the Rafah border crossing and the Philadelphi corridor along the Egyptian border and of adding new conditions for a prisoner exchange.
Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas political bureau, was adamant that the bridging proposals were unacceptable to the group. “The resistance will not allow, under any circumstances, the presence of occupation forces in any part of Gaza,” he said.
According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar on Monday, Israel agreed to gradually reduce the number of soldiers deployed on the Philadelphia corridor, while in return Cairo agreed not to set a timetable for the troops’ complete withdrawal.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told Mr Blinken during their meeting in Tel Aviv that “just as Israel leads the military pressure on Hamas, the United States must lead the political pressure until reaching an outline that will allow the return of the hostages”.
The Hamas-controlled health ministry said in a statement on Monday that 40 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip and 134 wounded over the previous 24 hours. The Israeli army said dozens of Hamas militants were killed in the recent ground and air strikes throughout the Strip.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, more than 40,100 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on October 7th. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 hostages seized in the surprise Hamas-led attack on that day. Some 116 hostages remain in Gaza and Israel has confirmed the deaths of 42 of them.
On the northern border, an Israeli soldier was killed on Sunday in a Hizbullah drone attack in the western Galilee while Israel continued pounding targets associated with the Iranian-backed Shia militia.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad took responsibility for an attempted suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Sunday night. Police said a West Bank Palestinian was killed when a bomb he was carrying in his backpack exploded prematurely.
Meanwhile, more and more relatives of the hostages are refusing to allow the names and photographs of their loved ones to be used in ceremonies planned by the government marking the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas-led attack. The family members say they will only allow the use of their names as part of a list of released hostages.
