(Bloomberg) — Israel and Hamas blamed each other for impeding a cease-fire and hostage deal as the top US diplomat arrived in Tel Aviv to press for an agreement.
Mediators say the current round of negotiations have brought the two sides closest to an official pause in fighting in months. But objections from both sides on Sunday raised the chances of renewed stalemate.
“We are conducting negotiations and not a scenario in which we just give and give,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday at the start of his cabinet meeting. “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.”
Hamas released a statement shortly afterward detailing what it said were Israel’s new demands that the militant group said would prevent a deal.
“We hold Netanyahu fully responsible,” the statement read.
While in Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to meet with Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to a senior State Department official. Blinken, who has made nine trips to the region since the conflict erupted, heads to Egypt on Tuesday.
During high-level negotiations at a two-day summit last week in Doha, Israel and the US worked to narrow gaps with Egyptian and Qatari officials serving as intermediaries for Hamas. Talks are set to resume in Cairo later this week, though no official date has been set.
The war in the Palestinian enclave broke out after Hamas fighters swarmed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people. Israel responded with an air and ground assault and more than 40,000 people have died, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza.
US officials have said efforts to reach an agreement on ending the conflict are nearing the final stages and Israeli negotiators over the weekend “expressed to the prime minister cautious optimism regarding the possibility of progress on the deal, in accordance with the updated American proposal,” according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.
The proposal resembles a previous three-phase plan unveiled in May by US President Joe Biden, calling for a suspension of hostilities, the swap of hostages for prisoners, some withdrawal of Israeli forces and the return of Palestinian civilians to return to the northern Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu has previously insisted that the Israeli army remain stationed along the strategic Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors in Gaza to prevent arms smuggling from Egypt and block Hamas gunmen from returning to northern Gaza alongside civilians. Another sticking point in the talks has been the number of Israeli hostages who would be freed in the first round of an exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
In a possible signal of flexibility, the Netzarim route, which bisects Gaza, went unmentioned in a statement Netanyahu issued after Blinken’s arrival. But Hamas suggested in its statement that in fact Israel continues to insist on a military presence at Netzarim and has placed “new conditions” on an exchange of hostages for prisoners.
On Saturday, two Israeli army reservists were killed in a bomb and gun ambush on the Netzarim route, the Israel Defense Forces said. Since the first Gaza ground incursion in October, the IDF has lost 332 personnel in action in the Palestinian enclave and on other fronts.
In the earlier statement Sunday, Netanyahu accused Hamas — designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union — of being “completely obstinate.” He said international pressure should be directed at Hamas and its key commander, Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be in hiding in Gaza.
Israel sent an advance “working team” to Cairo on Sunday to provide the logistical framework for the follow-up principals’ meeting, according to a government official who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information.
–With assistance from Dan Williams and Fares Akram.
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