US Secretary of State Blinken said negotiations for a ceasefire in the Gaza war would resume “in the coming days”.
The United States and Qatar announced the resumption of negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said mediators were exploring new options after months of failure to seal a plan led by the United States.
With less than two weeks before the US elections, Blinken is making his 11th trip to the region since Israel launched its attack on Gaza, which killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week, following the attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Blinken said Thursday that negotiators would resume negotiations “in the coming days” on ways to end the year-long war in Gaza and free dozens of captives captured by Palestinian armed groups in the attack from October 7.
“We discussed options to take advantage of this moment and next steps to move the process forward,” Blinken said, after talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
He said the two partners were seeking a plan “so that Israel can withdraw, so that Hamas cannot reconstitute itself and so that the Palestinian people can rebuild their lives and rebuild their future.”
“Now is the time to work to end this war, to ensure that all hostages are home, and to build a better future for the people of Gaza,” he said.
The Qatari prime minister said Israeli and American delegations would meet in Doha to discuss a possible ceasefire.
Qatar and Egypt acted as mediators between Israel and Hamas during months of talks that collapsed in August without an agreement to end the war.
On May 31, U.S. President Joe Biden outlined a plan that would temporarily end the fighting and call for the release of Israeli captives still held by Hamas in Gaza.
But negotiations have become bogged down, with one of the main sticking points being Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on the presence of Israeli troops on the Gaza-Egypt border.
Since Sinwar’s assassination last week, Israel has continued its intensive operations in besieged northern Gaza, in what Palestinians and UN agencies fear is an attempt to isolate the north from the rest of the enclave.
Blinken, on the third leg of a tour that took him to Israel and Saudi Arabia, reiterated his assertion that Sinwar was the main obstacle to a deal and that his death presented an opportunity.
Sheikh Mohammed said there was so far “no clarity on the path forward” from Hamas, but that Qatari mediators had “renewed dialogue” with the group since Sinwar’s death .
“There was a dialogue with representatives of the political office in Doha. We have had some meetings with them in recent days,” he said, adding that Egypt had “ongoing” discussions with Hamas.
U.S. officials had described Sinwar as uncompromising in negotiations brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt on a ceasefire that would also see the release of Gaza captives.
Critics said the problem was not just Hamas, but also the Biden administration’s inability to gain support from Israel, which has received a near-continuous flow of billions of dollars in U.S. weapons.
At least 42,847 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza and another 100,544 injured since October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities.
At least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on Israel, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on Israeli statistics, and around 250 others were captured.