TEL AVIV (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned Monday to the Middle East as a proposed Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal hangs in the balance after the rescue of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza in a military raid and following the latest turmoil in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
With no firm public response yet from Hamas or Israel to the proposal they received 10 days ago, Blinken started his eighth visit to the region since the conflict began in October by meeting with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, a key mediator with the militant Hamas group, and then talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Blinken once again called on Hamas to accept the plan, which he said has wide international support.
“If you want a cease-fire, press Hamas to say ‘yes,’” he told reporters before leaving Cairo on the trip that will take him to Israel, Jordan and Qatar. Blinken said Israel has accepted the proposal, though Netanyahu has not said so directly.
“I know that there are those who are pessimistic about the prospects,” Blinken said, putting the onus squarely on Hamas. “That’s understandable. Hamas continues to show extraordinary cynicism in its actions, a disinterest not only in the well-being and security of Israelis but also Palestinians.”
Blinken said the plan on the table is the “single best way” to get to a cease-fire, release the remaining hostages and improve regional security.
While President Joe Biden, Blinken and other U.S. officials have praised the hostage rescue, the operation resulted in the deaths of a large number of Palestinian civilians and may complicate the cease-fire push by emboldening Israel and hardening Hamas’ resolve to carry on fighting in the war it started with its Oct. 7 attack into Israel.
“It’s hard to say how Hamas will process this particular operation and what it will do to its determination about whether it will say yes or not,” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday. “We are hopeful that with enough of a chorus, the international community all speaking with one voice, Hamas will get to the right answer,” Sullivan told ABC’s “This Week.”
In his talks with el-Sissi, Blinken also discussed plans for post-conflict governance and reconstruction in Gaza, following massive destruction there.
“It’s imperative that there be a plan, and that has to involve security, it has to involve governance, it has to involve reconstruction,” Blinken said.
Netanyahu and his government have resisted calls for any ‘day after’ plan that would bar Israel from having some form of security presence in the territory. Blinken said he would urge Israel to come up with alternatives that would be acceptable.
“It would be very good if Israel put forward its own ideas on this, and I’ll be talking to the government about that,” he said. “But one way or another, we’ve got to have these plans, we’ve got to have them in place, we’ve got to be ready to go if we want to take advantage of a cease-fire.”
The three-phase cease-fire plan calls for the release of more hostages and a…
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