US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was “a lot” of work left to do to reach an agreement on an extended truce in Israel’s war on Gaza and a prisoner swap after the Palestinian group Hamas responded to a truce proposal with its own plan.
“There’s a lot of work to be done, but we’re very focused on that work and hopefully being able to resume the release of the hostages that was interrupted,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with the Israeli president. Isaac Herzog.
The top US diplomat met earlier with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and discussed a Hamas counterproposal to a truce plan drawn up by US and Israeli intelligence chiefs and handed to the Palestinian group last week by the Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
Hamas presented a detailed three-phase plan that will take place over four and a half months. The plan stipulates that all hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including high-ranking fighters, and an end to the war.
Netanyahu appeared to reject Hamas’ plan, vowing that Israel would continue its military attack on Gaza until “absolute victory.”
“We are on the path to absolute victory,” the Israeli prime minister said, adding that the operation would last months, not years. “There is no other solution.”
Later Wednesday, Blinken said he believed Hamas’ response “creates space” for a deal.
“While there are obvious failures in Hamas’ response, we believe this creates space to reach an agreement, and we will work tirelessly toward it,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.
An Egyptian official told the AFP news agency that “a new round of negotiations” would begin on Thursday in Cairo aimed at achieving “calm in the Gaza Strip”, now in its fifth month of war.
A Hamas source with knowledge of the matter said the Palestinian group had agreed to the talks, with the aim of “a cease-fire, an end to the war and a prisoner exchange agreement”.
More than 27,580 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its attack on the territory on October 7 after Hamas carried out an attack on southern Israel.
At least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas attack, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel bombarded Gaza relentlessly and launched a ground invasion, reducing much of the territory to rubble and displacing more than 80 percent of the population.
Gaps remain
Blinken has conducted intense shuttle diplomacy, crisscrossing the Middle East on Tuesday in his fifth visit to the region since the start of the war, and meeting with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, countries mediating hostage negotiations with Hamas.
Major differences remain between the two sides: Israel has previously said it will not withdraw its troops from Gaza or end the war until Hamas is wiped out.
A source close to the negotiations said that Hamas’ counterproposal did not require a guarantee of a permanent ceasefire at the start, but that an end to the war would be required before the last hostages are released, the Reuters news agency reported.
Israeli government spokesperson Avi Hyman told reporters: “We have received an update, we have received notification from the Qatari negotiators. We watch them. Mossad is carefully reviewing what has been presented to us.”
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official in Beirut, said the group “submitted its comments in a way that ensures a complete and total end to the aggression and
enable aid and provide shelter to displaced people, ensure reconstruction and lift the blockade against Gaza and carry out a prisoner exchange.
During the first 45-day phase, according to the offer document seen by Reuters, all Israeli women taken hostage, men under the age of 19, as well as the elderly and sick, would be released, in exchange for Palestinian women and children detained in Israeli prisons. Israel would withdraw its troops from populated areas of Gaza.
The implementation of the second phase will only begin after the parties conclude “indirect talks on the conditions necessary to end mutual military operations and return to complete calm.”
The second phase would include the release of the remaining male hostages and the complete withdrawal of Israel from all of Gaza. The remains of the dead would be exchanged during the third phase.
Ensuring that more humanitarian aid reaches Gaza and is distributed to those in need also depends on an end to the fighting, officials say.
A humanitarian “nightmare”
For now, the war rages unabated in Gaza, where the Health Ministry said Wednesday that at least 123 people had been killed in the previous 24 hours.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that if Israel moved into Gaza’s far south Rafah, it would “exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with incalculable regional consequences.”
UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese told Tel Aviv Tribune on Wednesday that it was essential to reach an agreement to provide aid to Gaza as quickly as possible.
“There is a need to provide aid to the Palestinians, which is crucial and this is not happening,” Albanese said.