US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel for talks with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders expressed determination to reach an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of an agreement that would include the release of more hostages held by Hamas.
“Israel has made very important compromises in this proposal,” Blinken said after meeting Netanyahu.
“Hamas must decide whether to accept this deal and actually improve the situation of the people of Gaza that it claims to care about. There is no time for delays; there is no time for further haggling,” the top US diplomat said.
Blinken also met with the Israeli president Isaac Duke and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for talks focused on providing additional humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army announced on Wednesday that the Erez border crossing at the northern end of the Gaza Strip had been opened to allow passage of 30 trucks carrying food and medical supplies from Jordan.
Aid supplies arriving by ship in the Israeli port of Ashdod will now be transported directly to the nearby Erez border crossing, Gallant said on Wednesday evening.
Gallant and Blinken visited the Kerem Shalom border crossing, located at the southern end of the coastal strip, and Ashdod, where the US secretary of state delivered his remarks.
Blinken said aid through Erez was a “very important” development to reach the hard-hit north of the strip, where food shortages are severe. He also said the U.S. was “probably a week” away from getting its own maritime assistance corridor – including a floating pier off Gaza – operational.
Israel has announced a rapid start to the controversial ground offensive in Rafah, the last Hamas bastion on the border with Egypt, if an agreement is not reached with Hamas.
However, Netanyahu has also made it clear that a Rafah offensive does not depend on a deal.
“We will go to Rafah and dismantle the Hamas battalions there – with or without a deal,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday at a meeting with relatives of Israeli hostages and fallen soldiers, according to his office. “The idea that we will stop the war before all its objectives are achieved is out of the question.”
Netanyahu is under intense pressure from his far-right coalition partners, who made their voices heard again on Wednesday when a right-wing minister sparked outrage by saying it wasn’t worth bringing back “22 or 33 people.”
Minister Orit Strock of the Religious Zionism party said Israel’s war goals should not be sacrificed for the return of a small number of hostages.
She spoke of a “terrible deal” that also endangered the hostages who were not involved. The war aims could not be “thrown in the trash to save 22 or 33 people,” she said.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid responded on X, formerly Twitter, that a “government with 22 or 33 extremist coalition members has no right to exist.”
Around 129 people abducted on October 7 are believed to still be in the Gaza Strip, including many who Israel believes are no longer alive.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Egyptian officials, the proposed deal involves two stages.
The first stage would involve the release of at least 20 hostages within a three-week ceasefire in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners. For each additional hostage, the duration of the ceasefire could be extended by one day, it said.
A second stage would include a 10-week ceasefire in which Hamas and Israel could agree to a broader release of hostages and a longer pause in fighting that could last up to a year.
However, Hamas has so far insisted on a complete end to the war, which Israel rejects
Both sides are not negotiating directly, but through mediators Egypt, Qatar and the USA.
“We are committed to reaching a ceasefire that brings the hostages home, now. And the only reason this isn’t happening is Hamas,” Blinken said earlier in Tel Aviv.
