Blinken’s Middle East tour fails: No hope for a Gaza ceasefire agreement as Netanyahu puts up obstacles

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to add urgency to efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza during a quick tour of the Middle East, but left the region on Tuesday with a deal between Israel and Hamas still elusive.

Blinken and mediators from Egypt and Qatar have pinned their hopes on a US proposal aimed at narrowing the gaps between the two sides in the 10-month-old war, after negotiations stalled last week without progress.

“The deal has to be done, it has to be done in the coming days, and we will do everything we can to get it done,” Blinken told reporters in Doha before leaving for Washington.

A senior Biden administration official traveling with Blinken said the United States expects ceasefire talks to continue this week.

Blinken headed to Egypt for talks yesterday with President Abdel Fattah el Sisi and then to Qatar.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Blinken said Israel had accepted the proposal and urged Hamas to accept it as well.

Blinken was asked in Qatar about the terms of an Israeli troop withdrawal as part of a ceasefire and about an Axios report that quoted Netanyahu as saying he may have convinced Blinken that Israel should keep its forces in the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza.

“The United States doesn’t accept any long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza,” Blinken said.

“More specifically, the agreement is very clear on the timeline and locations of the withdrawal from Gaza, and Israel has agreed to that… So that’s all I know… That’s what I’m very clear on,” he added.

Blinken didn’t directly comment on the Axios report, which was posted on the social media site X.

Hamas and Egypt oppose the presence of Israeli troops in the Philadelphi Corridor, but Netanyahu says the troops are needed on the border to stop weapons smuggling into Gaza, while a senior US official denied the Axios report earlier on Tuesday.

Egyptian security sources said the United States had proposed an international presence in the region, a proposal the sources said might be acceptable to Cairo if it was limited to a maximum of six months.

“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution as the basic guarantor of stability in the region,” Sisi said after his meeting with Blinken.

The fate of the tiny, densely populated Gaza Strip hangs in the balance, as does that of the remaining hostages held there.

The Israeli military campaign on the territory has killed more than 40,000 people since last October, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The war in Gaza began on October 7, when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to statistics.

Blinken described the latest efforts to reach an agreement as probably the best, and perhaps the last chance.

Blinken said that his meeting with Netanyahu was constructive, adding that Hamas should accept the proposal, which aims to bring the two sides closer together.

Hamas leader Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in response to a question about Blinken’s statements that the US secretary of state insists on continuing to lie, and this is one of the reasons for the failure of efforts to reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani told Blinken that Doha is committed to its role as a mediator in ceasefire talks, alongside Egypt and the United States.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Sheikh Mohammed also stressed in a phone call with Blinken the importance of unifying regional and international efforts to reach an agreement that leads to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the release of prisoners and detainees, and spares the region the consequences of regional escalation.

US, Hamas, Egyptian and Qatari officials didn’t explain the content of the proposal or how it differed from previous proposals.

Hamas accuses Israel of obstructing the deal with new demands, and says the movement remains committed to the terms it agreed with mediators in July based on a proposal presented by the United States in May.

Hamas rejected US statements that it was backing away from the agreement, and said, “The mediating brothers in Qatar and Egypt know that the movement dealt positively and responsibly in all previous rounds of negotiations, and that Netanyahu was always the one obstructing reaching an agreement, and setting new conditions and demands”.

Hamas added, “We reaffirm our commitment to what we agreed upon with the mediators on July 2, based on the Biden Declaration and the Security Council resolution, and we call on the mediators to assume their responsibilities and oblige the occupation to accept it”.

For months, talks have been held intermittently on the same issues, with Israel saying the war can only end by eliminating Hamas as a military and political force, while Hamas says it will accept only a permanent ceasefire.

The US official said that even if Hamas agreed to the proposal to close the gaps immediately, additional talks would be required to reach the details of implementing the agreement.