US secretary of state Antony Blinken landed in Israel on Sunday as Washington intensified its diplomatic push to secure a deal for ending the war between Israel and Hamas and freeing the hostages still held in Gaza.
The US and Arab states view an agreement as the best way of preventing the war between Israel and Hamas from spiralling into a full-blown regional conflict, after Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hizbollah pledged to retaliate for the assassinations of two senior militants last month.
Blinken was due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials on Monday. His latest trip comes before a meeting in Cairo later this week in which the US, Qatar and Egypt, which have been mediating talks between Israel and Hamas, are hoping to broker a ceasefire.
However, significant gaps between the Israeli and Hamas positions remain, and Netanyahu said on Sunday that, while Israel was prepared to be flexible in some areas, it would not budge in others.
“We are conducting negotiations and not a scenario in which we just give and give. There are things we can be flexible on and there are things that we cannot be flexible on, which we will insist on. We know how to distinguish between the two very well,” he said.
Blinken’s arrival in Tel Aviv came two days after the US, Qatar and Egypt proposed bridging the gaps between Israel and Hamas at talks in Doha. The proposal is based on a three-stage plan that US President Joe Biden set out in May to end the fighting and secure the release of hostages.
In the days since last week’s meeting, US and Israeli officials have voiced guarded hopes about prospects. Biden said that, while the sides were “not there yet”, an agreement could be “close”, and Netanyahu’s office expressed “cautious optimism”.
However, Hamas officials have been more sceptical, with some in the leadership outside Gaza saying that last week’s talks had not brought any significant breakthroughs.
Still, an official briefed on the talks said mediators were “cautiously optimistic”.
“There are still sticking points on the key issues, but a good indication is Hamas has engaged with mediators around the ‘bridging proposal’ presented on Friday,” the official said. “Separately, mediators have been engaging with Iran in the hopes of avoiding an escalation and giving the ongoing talks a chance.”
The three-stage plan set out by Biden envisages a first stage based on a six-week truce, during which Hamas would free a first group of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
The second phase would involve the release of all hostages and what mediators hope would be an extended ceasefire, in effect ending the 10-month war. The third phase would start the reconstruction of Gaza.
However, one of the sticking points is Israel’s determination to keep a military presence on the border between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi corridor — something Hamas has repeatedly rejected.
A Turkish foreign ministry official said on Sunday that Hamas officials had reached out to Ankara, complaining that US officials were painting an overly optimistic picture on the state of talks.
The official said that, from Hamas’s perspective, the terms of the deal have fallen behind what even the UN Security Council endorsed on June 10.
Biden’s plan, which was initially endorsed by Israel, envisaged Israeli forces withdrawing from populated areas of Gaza in the first stage, and completely in the second stage. But in recent weeks, Netanyahu has insisted Israel will maintain a presence along the Philadelphi corridor, a position reiterated on Sunday by energy minister Eli Cohen.
“It is clear to everyone that the State of Israel will have security control over Gaza, which means the ability to come and carry out an operation anywhere and at any point in time,” he said in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio. “As part of this, the Philadelphi route should remain and we are working and insisting that it remain under Israeli control.”
Additional reporting by Adam Samson in Ankara
