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 hostage release deal.
Blinken, on his ninth regional tour since Hamas’ 7 October attack triggered the war, said he was back in Tel Aviv “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 ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” Blinken said as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
The US secretary of state was due to meet later on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials before travelling to Cairo, where ceasefire talks are expected to resume this week.
Israel and Hamas traded blame 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 militant 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 US President Joe Biden.
Biden said Sunday that a ceasefire was “still possible” and that the United States was “not giving up,” in brief comments to reporters.
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.
