Top US diplomat Antony Blinken on Monday urged Israel and Hamas not to derail negotiations that he said may be a “last opportunity” to secure a Gaza truce and hostage release deal.
Blinken, on his ninth regional tour since Hamas’s October 7 attack triggered the war, said he was back in Israel “to get this agreement to the line and ultimately over the line”.
“This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” Blinken said as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.
The US secretary of state later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and is due to travel on Tuesday to Cairo where ceasefire talks are expected to resume this week.
The plan announced by Biden at the end of May would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks as Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.
With AFP
