Tel Aviv, Israel
CNN
—
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday that Israel has accepted a proposal to bridge the gap in ceasefire talks and that Hamas must accept the next step ahead of further talks later this week.
“The next important statement is for Hamas to say yes, and then, in the coming days, all the expert negotiators must come together and work on clear understandings about the implementation of the agreement,” Blinken told a press conference in Tel Aviv.
While Netanyahu is said to have agreed to the bridge plan, there are still significant challenges before an agreement can actually be reached. Not only has Hamas disagreed with the proposal, but negotiators are still working out the specifics of how the deal will be implemented. They are also working to establish “clear understandings of how the various parties are going to best carry out their obligations,” a top US diplomat said.
Ahead of his meetings with Israeli officials on Monday, Blinken said the push to finalize a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza had reached a “decisive moment,” before traveling to Egypt and Qatar on Tuesday.
In comments with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv, Blinken said this is “the best, maybe the last, chance to get the hostages home, get a cease-fire, and put everyone on the best path to peace and security.” Both met.
“It’s time for everyone to say yes and not look for any excuses to say no,” Blinken said. “It’s time to do that. It’s time to make sure nobody takes any steps to derail this process.”
In his press conference, Blinken underscored the urgency of the moment, noting that “intervening events may make things more difficult, if not impossible.”
“We’ve experienced that throughout this process, so there’s a serious sense of urgency now,” he said.
Blinken and the Israeli prime minister’s office announced Israel’s agreement to the bridge project following a three-hour meeting between a top US diplomat and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem earlier Monday. Both sides described the meeting as constructive. Netanyahu promised to send senior negotiators to Qatar or Egypt to “finish this process,” Blinken said.
It is not clear what the “bridging plan” entails. It was put forward by the US last week, backed by Qatar and Egypt, following two days of high-level talks in Doha. The death toll in Gaza since October is said to have reached 40,000 as efforts in the Middle East escalated to an Iranian attack on Israel – underscoring 10 months of suffering, malnutrition and desperation for Palestinians. enclave during Israel’s war with Hamas.
On Sunday evening, Hamas and Netanyahu charged that a deal may still be a long way off. Hamas suggested it rejected the plan.
Hamas, which has said the latest plan does not include a permanent ceasefire, introduced new conditions on prisoner exchanges.
The group accused Netanyahu of “obstructing” an agreement and reiterated its desire to implement a three-phase proposal put forward by US President Joe Biden, including the release of hostages from Gaza, a “full and complete ceasefire” and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. It called on mediators to “enforce the occupation” of the plan.
Netanyahu backtracked, saying Israel “will not give in to Hamas’ demands” as a condition of the deal to end the war in Gaza.
“The prime minister has strongly emphasized this basic demand, which is essential to achieving the goals of the war, and Hamas has changed its position,” a statement from his office said on Sunday. “The Prime Minister will continue to work to advance an agreement that maximizes the number of surviving hostages and helps achieve all of the war objectives.”
At a news conference on Monday, Blinken said he “can’t speculate exactly what Hamas’s intentions are” but is expected to learn more in his talks with Egyptian and Qatari officials on Tuesday.
“We’ve seen public statements, but we’ve seen public statements before that don’t fully reflect where Hamas is,” he said.
Other sticking points in the talks include Israel’s insistence on controlling the border between Gaza and Egypt, vetoing Palestinian prisoner releases and preventing the movement of armed men from southern Gaza to the north.
As diplomatic efforts continue, the death toll in Gaza continues to rise.
Two separate Israeli attacks in Gaza on Monday killed at least 15 people, including seven former bodyguards of the late Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told CNN.
Nine people, including bodyguards, were killed in an attack on al-Shadi refugee camp northwest of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip, Basel said.
A second strike hit the area behind the Austrian Towers – residential buildings west of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, killing at least six people and wounding 15 others, Basel said.
CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on both incidents.
Separately, the IDF announced in a short statement on Monday that an Israeli soldier had been killed in the southern Gaza Strip.
The IDF said in a statement earlier on Monday that its troops “expanded operations in the Gaza Strip to the Khan Yunis area and the suburbs of Deir al-Bala.”
“Troops are destroying terrorists, destroying war compounds above and below ground,” the statement added.
Speaking to Herzog on Monday, Blinken acknowledged that this is a “tremendous moment” for Israel over concerns about possible attacks from Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that the U.S. has “taken decisive steps … to deter any attack and defend against any attacks if necessary.”
“We are working to ensure that there are no escalations, no provocations, no actions that could in any way push us away from getting this deal across the border. Other places and more intensity,” he said.
When Blinken arrived in Israel on Sunday, there was an explosion in Tel Aviv, which Israeli officials declared a terrorist attack. The al-Qassam Brigades, an armed wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the blast.
In the evening, seven members of a family were killed in an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza, medical officials said. According to al-Aqsa Hospital, six children and their mother were killed in the strike at a home in Deir al-Bala. A hospital spokesman said the children’s father was injured.
It comes a day after an Israeli attack killed 15 members of a single family in the al-Saweda neighborhood of Deir al-Bala in central Gaza. The Gaza Civil Defense said nine children were among the dead.
In a statement on Sunday, the Israeli military said forces were continuing to operate in Khan Yunis and Deir al-Bala. Adding to the Gazans’ woes, last week doctors diagnosed the first case of polio in the enclave in 25 years.
CNN’s Karim Khader and Mohammad Tawfiq contributed reporting.
