Anthony Blinken

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian movement Hamas blamed each other for the failure so far of the mediators’ effort to conclude a cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip, while a new visit by US Secretary of State Anthony began. Blinken in Israel.

In Washington, US President Joe Biden said reaching a deal was “still possible” and vowed his administration would “not give up” on trying to get it done.

“Pressure on Hamas, not Israel”

Ahead of his morning meeting with Mr Blinken, Mr Netanyahu called for “the pressure to be on Hamas”, and “not on the Israeli government”, denouncing the Palestinian Islamist movement’s “stubborn refusal” to accept a deal after two days of negotiations in Doha between the envoys of his government and the mediators (Qatar, Egypt, USA), the other side being absent.

“We place full responsibility on Benjamin Netanyahu because he led to the failure of the mediators’ efforts by obstructing an agreement and (responsibility) for the lives of the hostages, who are in the same danger as our own people” as the shelling of the Palestinian enclave continues, countered the Hamas in a statement it released.

Mr Blinken’s visit, his ninth tour of the Middle East since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, is in theory aimed at persuading “all parties” to strike a deal, the accompanying US official said. the head of the State Department after his arrival in Tel Aviv.

Washington continues to push to end the war, now in its tenth month — its 318th day — triggered by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, amid threats by Iran and its allies to attack in Israel, which heightened concern about conflagration throughout the region.

Mr Blinken is also expected to meet Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad and President Isaac Herzog before traveling to Cairo on Tuesday, where negotiators are expected to resume talks later this week.

New compromise proposal from the US – Hamas rejects

The US, which last week approved the sale of $20 billion worth of weapons to Israel, presented a new compromise proposal to Doha on Friday.

“There are things we can be flexible about and things we can’t,” Mr Netanyahu commented, insisting he resisted pressure, mounting internationally and domestically, to end the war.

Hamas reiterated yesterday that it rejects the new proposal, since it considers that it “meets the conditions set by Netanyahu, in particular his refusal of a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal (of the Israeli army) from Gaza”.

The movement, which officially did not take part in the negotiations in the Qatari capital, also denounced the Israeli prime minister’s “obsession” with keeping troops deployed along the border of the Palestinian enclave with Egypt and the “new conditions” he set, especially for the Palestinians prisoners to be exchanged for Israeli hostages.

Hamas insists on the implementation, as it was, of the proposal presented at the end of May by US President Biden and calls on the mediators to “oblige the occupation to implement what was agreed upon”.

That proposal included, in its first phase, a six-week truce, the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip, and the release of Hamas hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli detention centers.

Benjamin Netanyahu declares, almost daily, that his aim is to continue the war until Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, is eliminated, which it characterizes as a terrorist organization, like the US and the EU.

Blinken’s double mission

The US believes that a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip would prevent an Iranian attack on Israel; Tehran has vowed to avenge the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Iranian capital on July 31, which it blamed on Israel. The risk of a major military escalation across the Middle East region has been magnified following the killing of Hamas leader and, hours earlier on the evening of July 30, the leadership of Hezbollah’s military arm, Fouad Shukr, in a bombing in a southern suburb of Beirut. which he confirmed was launched by Israel’s military.

The attack by Hamas’ military arm in southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7 killed 1,198 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 111 are still being held hostage in the Gaza Strip, but at least 39 are presumed dead by the Israeli military.

Large-scale Israeli operations in the besieged Gaza Strip in retaliation have claimed the lives of at least 40,099 people, according to the latest figures from Hamas’ health ministry.

It caused a humanitarian disaster in the Palestinian enclave, which is devastated and threatened by famine, according to the UN. Almost the entire population (2.4 million inhabitants) has been displaced.

The shelling of Gaza continues

Alongside diplomatic efforts, the Israeli military continues to put pressure on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where it continues its shelling and ground operations.

Yesterday the civil protection in Gaza spoke of 11 dead in bombings in Jabalia (north) and Deir al-Bala (central).

“Are these women and children part of the resistance?” exclaimed Ahmed Abu Heir, an eyewitness to a bombing that killed a mother and her six children in an apartment in Deir al-Bala.

A crew of the AFP television service saw Palestinians fleeing by all means a makeshift camp for the displaced in the Has Younis area, after Israeli tanks took up positions a short distance from it.

“Tanks approached us, we were very scared, we don’t know where to go,” explained 44-year-old Lina Saleha.

In the occupied West Bank, where the war in Gaza has further escalated violence, an Israeli night watchman was killed yesterday by a “terrorist”, the army said, in a Jewish settlement adjacent to a Palestinian village where a settler rush killed a young resident last week.

“More than 10,000 Palestinians have been arrested since the start of the war” in the Gaza Strip in this occupied Palestinian territory, according to the non-governmental organization Prisoners’ Club.