Tel Aviv, Israel
CNN
—
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Israel has accepted a proposal to bridge gaps in ceasefire negotiations, and that the next step is for Hamas to accept the proposal before further negotiations later this week.
“The next important statement is for Hamas to say yes, and then, in the coming days, all the expert negotiators should come together to work on clear understandings on implementing the agreement,” Blinken said at a press conference in Tel Aviv.
Despite Netanyahu’s claims that he has agreed to the interim proposal, significant challenges remain before an actual agreement can be reached. Not only has Hamas agreed to the proposal, but negotiators are still working out the specific details of how the agreement will be implemented. They are also working to establish “clear understandings about how the various parties will implement their commitments,” the top US diplomat said.
Efforts to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza have reached a “critical moment,” Blinken said ahead of his meetings with Israeli officials on Monday, as he visited Israel before heading to Egypt and Qatar on Tuesday.
“This may be the best chance, and perhaps the last chance, to bring the hostages home, to achieve a ceasefire, and to put everyone on a better path to lasting peace and security,” Blinken said in remarks alongside Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv before the two men met.
“It’s time for everyone to come to the table and not look for excuses to say no,” Blinken said. “It’s time to do that. It’s time to make sure that no one takes any steps that would derail that process.”
In his press conference, Blinken stressed the urgency of the moment, noting that “emergency events may come along that make things more difficult, if not impossible.”
“We’ve seen that throughout this process, so there’s an urgency now,” he said.
Blinken and the Israeli prime minister’s office’s announcement that Israel had agreed to the bridge proposal came after a three-hour meeting between the top U.S. diplomat and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem earlier Monday. Both sides described the meeting as constructive. Blinken said Netanyahu had pledged to send senior negotiators “to complete this process” either to Qatar or Egypt.
But it is unclear what exactly the “bridge proposal” entails. The United States, with the backing of Qatar and Egypt, put it forward last week after two days of high-stakes talks in Doha. The mediators have stepped up their efforts as the Middle East braces for a possible Iranian attack on Israel and as the death toll in Gaza since October has topped 40,000 — a grim figure that underscores the Palestinian enclave’s suffering, malnutrition and despair during Israel’s 10-month war with Hamas.
On Sunday evening, Hamas and Netanyahu traded accusations that an agreement may still be out of reach. Hamas indicated that it rejected the proposal.
Hamas said the latest proposal did not include a permanent ceasefire, and raised new conditions on prisoner exchanges, among other issues.
The movement accused Netanyahu of “obstructing” an agreement, and stressed its desire to implement the three-stage proposal presented by US President Joe Biden, which includes the release of hostages from Gaza, a “complete and comprehensive ceasefire”, and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. It called on mediators to “force the occupation to implement” this plan.
Netanyahu responded by saying that Israel would not “give in to Hamas’s demands” to end the war in Gaza as a condition for reaching an agreement.
“The prime minister insisted strongly on this basic demand, which is vital to achieving the goals of the war, and Hamas has changed its position,” his office said in a statement on Sunday. “The prime minister will continue to work to reach an agreement that will increase the number of living hostages and allow all the goals of the war to be achieved.”
At his press conference on Monday, Blinken said he could not “speculate on Hamas’s intentions specifically,” but expected to learn more in his talks with Egyptian and Qatari officials on Tuesday.
“We have seen public statements, but we have seen public statements before that do not fully reflect Hamas’s position,” he said.
Other major points of contention in the talks include Israel’s insistence on controlling the border between Gaza and Egypt, having veto power over the release of Palestinian prisoners, and preventing militants from moving from southern Gaza to the north.
As diplomatic efforts continue, the death toll in Gaza continues to rise.
At least 15 people were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on Gaza on Monday, including seven former bodyguards of late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told CNN.
Basal reported that shelling of the Al-Shati refugee camp northwest of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip led to the killing of nine people, including their guards.
Basal added that the second raid targeted an area behind the Austrian Towers – residential buildings west of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least six citizens and wounding 15 others.
CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment on both incidents.
In a separate context, the Israeli Defense Forces announced in a short statement today, Monday, the killing of an Israeli soldier in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli occupation army said earlier on Monday that its forces “expanded their operation in the Gaza Strip to the Khan Yunis area and the outskirts of Deir al-Balah,” in a statement.
The statement added that “the forces are eliminating terrorists and destroying combat complexes above and below ground.”
Speaking alongside Herzog on Monday, Blinken acknowledged that this was a “precarious moment” for Israel because of concerns about potential attacks by Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, and said the United States had “taken decisive action … to deter any attacks and if necessary to defend against any attacks.”
“We are working to ensure that there is no escalation, no provocations, no actions that would in any way distance us from reaching this agreement, or escalate the conflict to other places and with greater intensity,” he said.
When Blinken arrived in Israel on Sunday, an explosion occurred in Tel Aviv that Israeli officials described as a terrorist attack. Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the blast.
In the evening, medical officials said an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed seven members of the same family. Al-Aqsa Hospital said six children and their mother were killed in the strike on a house in Deir al-Balah. A hospital spokesman said the children’s father was wounded.
This comes a day after an Israeli airstrike killed at least 15 people, all from the same family, in the al-Zawaida area of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Nine children were among the dead, according to the Gaza Civil Defense.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Israeli army said its forces were continuing their operations in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. Adding to the suffering of Gazans, doctors last week discovered the first case of polio in the Strip in 25 years.
CNN’s Karim Khedr and Mohamed Tawfik contributed to this report.