Top US diplomat Antony Blinken appealed Tuesday to Hamas urgently to accept a ceasefire plan to ease suffering in Gaza but also entered a public spat with Israel as he capped a new round of shuttle diplomacy.
The US Secretary of State closed his ninth wartime trip to the region, in which he warned that the US-backed truce proposal may be the “last chance” to broker an end to the conflict.
“Time is of the essence,” Blinken said after stops in key Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, as well as Israel.
“With every passing day, more bad things can happen to more good people who don’t deserve it,” he told reporters before flying out of the Qatari capital Doha.
“This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line,” he said of the truce proposal.
The United States last week presented ideas to bridge gaps and, through Qatar and Egypt, has pressed heavily on Hamas to accept and return to talks this week in Cairo.
But a day after Blinken said that US ally Israel was on board, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.
Netanyahu insisted that Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli troops seized from Hamas, who rely on secret tunnels to bring in weapons.
Blinken said that Israel had already agreed on the “schedule and location” of troop withdrawals from Gaza.
Since the start of the conflict, it was made “very clear that the United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel”, Blinken said when asked about Netanyahu’s remarks.
A senior US official accompanying Blinken, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, was more blunt, saying that such “maximalist statements” by Netanyahu “are not constructive” in reaching a truce.
Blinken acknowledged that differences remained and called for both Israel and Hamas to show “maximum flexibility” in their positions.
With AFP
