Gaza: Blinken in Israel, Netanyahu and Hamas accuse each other of derailing an agreement

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with top Israeli leaders on Monday links to try to unblock the process towards a ceasefire at Gaza, which Israel and Hamas accuse each other of failing.

Arriving in Israel on Sunday, the head of American diplomacy is to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and President Isaac Herzog.

M. Blinken, who is on his ninth visit to the Middle East since Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, will then travel to Cairo on Tuesday, where mediators are due to resume talks this week.

He hopes to convince “all parties” to drive an agreement “to the finish line,” a US official accompanying him said after his arrival in Tel Aviv.

Displaced Palestinians flee a makeshift camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, after Israeli tanks took up positions on a hill overlooking it, August 18, 2024 © AFP – Bashar TALEB

Washington is hoping to end more than ten months of a devastating conflict that has tarnished the record of outgoing President Joe Biden and that Iran and its allies threaten to turn into a regional conflagration.

On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu called for “directing pressure on Hamas” and “not towards the Israeli government”, denouncing a “stubborn refusal” by the Palestinian movement to conclude an agreement, after two days of negotiations in Doha between the Israeli side and the American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

“We hold Benjamin Netanyahu fully responsible for having thwarted the efforts of the mediators and obstructed an agreement,” in disregard of the “lives of the hostages” held since October 7, Hamas retorted in a statement.

Joe Biden nevertheless judged on Sunday evening that a truce in Gaza was “still possible” and assured that the United States “was not abandoning” its efforts.

The United States, which has just approved a $20 billion arms sale to its Israeli ally, submitted a new compromise proposal during the talks in Doha on Friday.

– “Refusal of a total withdrawal” from Gaza –

Hamas rejected the proposal, saying it “meets the conditions set by Netanyahu, particularly his refusal of a permanent ceasefire and a total withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.”

© AFP – Ahmad GHARABLI

The movement, which did not participate in the negotiations in Qatar, denounces in particular the Israeli “insistence” in maintaining troops on the Gaza border with Egypt and “new conditions on the file” of Palestinian prisoners likely to be be exchanged for hostages held in Gaza.

The Palestinian movement demands the application of the plan announced at the end of May by Mr. Biden, and calls on the mediators to “force the occupation (Israel, editor's note) to implement implement what was agreed.

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This plan provides in a first phase for a six-week truce accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages kidnapped on October 7 , and in its second phase, notably a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

– “The tanks are getting closer” –

For Washington, a ceasefire would help prevent an attack by Iran and its allies against Israel, after their threats to retaliate for the assassination, attributed to Israel, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, and that of the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Fouad Chokr, killed the day before in an Israeli strike near Beirut.

The attack by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel resulted in the death of 1,198 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 111 are still being held in Gaza, including 39 declared dead by the army.

A photo provided by the Israeli army on August 18, 2024 shows Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip © Israeli Army – –

The Israeli offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip has left at least 40,099 dead, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed.

It has caused a humanitarian disaster in the devastated Palestinian territory, which is threatened with famine according to the UN. Almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced.

In parallel with diplomatic efforts, the Israeli army is maintaining military pressure on Hamas in Gaza and is continuing its bombings and ground offensive there.

On Sunday, the Civil Defense in Gaza reported 11 deaths in strikes in Jabalia (north) and Deir al-Balah (center).

“Are these women and children part of the resistance?”, exclaims Ahmed Abou Kheir, witness to a bombing that killed a mother and her six children in their apartment in Deir al-Balah.

Displaced Palestinians flee a makeshift camp in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, after Israeli tanks took up positions on a hill overlooking it, on August 18, 2024 © AFP – Bashar TALEB

AFPTV saw Palestinians fleeing by all means a makeshift camp in the Khan Younis region, after tanks Israelis have taken up positions nearby.

“The tanks are getting closer to us, it scares us a lot, we really don't know where to go,” said Lina Saleha, a 44-year-old woman.

In the occupied West Bank, where the war in Gaza has intensified violence, an Israeli security guard was killed Sunday by a “terrorist”, according to the army, in a Jewish settlement near a Palestinian village where a settler raid had left one dead.

“More than 10,000 Palestinians have been arrested since the start of the war” in this occupied Palestinian territory, according to the Palestinian NGO Prisoners Club.

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