U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Hamas on Monday to swiftly accept Israel’s latest and “extraordinarily generous” proposal for a Gaza truce to secure a release of hostages, amid a diplomatic drive to end the war between Israel and Hamas.
Axios reports that Israel is threatening to move forward with an invasion of Rafah if Hamas rejects the proposal. More than one million displaced Palestinians are taking shelter in the southern Gaza city.
Blinken said the Biden administration still opposes an Israel Defense Forces operation in Rafah as long as there is no credible plan for protecting civilians. “We still haven’t seen such a plan,” Blinken said.
Axios further reports that President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call on Sunday that the onus is on Hamas to accept the recent hostage deal proposal, a source with knowledge of the call said.
The source said the call was “constructive” and about 75% of it focused on the hostage deal. Biden and Netanyahu also discussed videos published in recent days of two Americans who are held hostage in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, who spoke after Blinken, said that without a ceasefire in Gaza and a political horizon for the Palestinians, Arab countries will have a hard time discussing a post-war solution for Gaza.
He confirmed that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are close to getting the “mega-deal” bilateral agreement. He said Saudi Arabia and the U.S. agree on the broad lines of the Palestinian component of such a deal, which centers on “a credible and irreversible path for a Palestinian state”.
The foreign minister also said the Arab countries will agree to discuss an Arab peacekeeping force in Gaza only as part of a broader political solution.
