U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Wednesday he would continue to urgently press Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, despite a counterproposal from Hamas that it said contained unacceptable demands.
The proposed ceasefire after more than eight months of Gaza war follows an outline announced by President Biden last month and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. But Israel and Hamas still appear far from an agreement.
“In the coming days, we’re going to be moving urgently,” Blinken said, “to get this deal done.”
“The two sides have reached an agreement that is almost identical to the one proposed by Hamas on May 6,” Blinken said at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, attended by Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
But he said Hamas’ response, which was received by Egyptian and Qatari mediators and passed on to U.S. officials on Tuesday, made demands that “go beyond the positions previously held and accepted by Hamas.”
“Some of these changes are doable, some are not,” Blinken said. He declined to give details of Hamas’ counterproposal but suggested the group’s changing demands cast doubt on the sincerity of its negotiators. At some point, he said, “you have to question whether they are moving forward in good faith.”
Hamas wants assurances from the United States and other mediators that Israel will abide by a permanent ceasefire, said an official with knowledge of the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private diplomatic matters.
Although President Biden has said the plan was developed by Israel, the Israeli government has not publicly accepted it, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted he will not stop the war until he achieves his oft-cited goal of destroying Hamas’s rule and military capabilities.
The proposed agreement calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, followed by negotiations for a longer or even permanent ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal and reconstruction of Gaza after the release of some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
Qatar and Egypt act as go-betweens between Israel and Hamas, but the two sides do not communicate directly.
Blinken said the United States would release proposals it had developed with partners in the region to address governance, security and reconstruction issues in Gaza “in the coming weeks.” Blinken spoke on the final leg of a three-day Middle East trip, his eighth to the region since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Blinken left the area as tensions escalated along Israel’s northern border. Powerful Lebanese militias and political movements Syrian government forces, backed by Iran, fired 215 rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for an Israeli strike late Tuesday that killed a senior Hezbollah commander.
Commander Taleb Abdallah, also known as Abu Taleb, is one of the highest-ranking Hezbollah members to be killed since the group launched a cross-border attack in support of Hamas on Oct. 7 that sparked the Gaza war.
Hezbollah claimed the attacks on a string of military bases, including Mount Meron, which houses a military radar station about five miles south of the border. Hezbollah also claimed an attack on a weapons factory in Plasan, a manufacturer of armored vehicles for the Israeli military.
The Israeli military said there were no reports of casualties from Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Hezbollah rocket attacks have forced thousands of Israelis to flee the border area, and Israeli officials have threatened decisive military action if any serious attacks occur. The militias have vowed to keep fighting, reigniting fears that months of small-scale clashes could turn into a major war on Israel’s northern border.
Speaking at Abdullah’s funeral in a southern suburb of Beirut, Hezbollah’s executive committee chairman Hashim Saffieddin vowed that the group would redouble its attacks on Israel.
“If the enemy’s message is for us to abandon our support for the oppressed people of Gaza, then he must know that our answer is final,” Mr. Saffieddin said. “We will increase the intensity, number and quality of our actions.”
The U.S. military urged Israel and Hezbollah on Wednesday to de-escalate tensions. “We don’t want to see a broader regional conflict, we do want to see tensions in the region de-escalate,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singer told reporters at a press briefing.
In response to the escalation of the situation on the border between Israel and Lebanon, Blinken said he believed that neither side would welcome a larger-scale war. He said, “It is safe to say that no one is actually trying to provoke a war or escalate the situation,” and “there is a strong preference for resolving the issue through diplomatic means.”
He said the best way to ease tensions on Lebanon’s border with Israel would be a ceasefire in Gaza, a move he said would “greatly relieve stress in the system” and remove Hezbollah’s excuse to attack Israel.
Reported by Alan Boxman, Adam Rasgon and Abu Bakr al-Bashir.
