The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, affirmed yesterday in Tel Aviv his determination to achieve a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas "now" and insisted a lot on it while the Islamist organization stated that it would respond as soon as possible. Late yesterday afternoon, Hamas announced in a message to the Associated Press agency that it would give a response today through Egyptian mediators. This seemed to ruin the situation, given that the Israeli Government had only given the deadline until those hours, saying that if there was a response it would send its negotiators to Cairo. In fact, he did send them before the Hamas message, according to the Israeli press.
The Israeli counteroffer for a truce (the number of proposals from both sides is already confusing) included the exchange of 33 hostages – in a first phase – for an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners, in addition to the return of the Gazans displaced to the north, all this during a truce of 40 days. However, Palestinian Islamists have not modified their initial demands, including a comprehensive end to the war.
Antony Blinken, who met yesterday with Beniamin Netanyahu, praised the proposal for a truce in Gaza presented to Hamas, which he described as “very intelligent” and “extraordinarily generous.” The Palestinian group “needs to say yes,” he told relatives of people kidnapped by the Islamist group who were waiting for him in front of his hotel, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
A senior Hamas leader, Sami Abu Zuhri, considered that “Blinken's comments contradict reality. “It is not surprising that Blinken, known as the foreign minister of Israel, not America, would make such a statement.” Abu Zuhri told Reuters that “even the Israeli negotiating team admitted that Netanyahu was the one who was standing in the way of reaching an agreement.
Yesterday Netanyahu was once again relentless in his plans to invade Rafah, in southern Gaza, “with or without an agreement.” In his meeting with Blinken, the Israeli prime minister insisted that he would not accept a deal that included an end to the war in Gaza. Binken insisted that “an operation” now in Rafah reduces the possibilities of an agreement to free the hostages, and would also affect a normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia. Blinken reiterated the same to ministers Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant, and to President Isaac Herzog.
Netanyahu reiterated that, even if the truce was reached, he would order the land invasion in the south of the strip, where about half of the enclave's 2.3 million inhabitants are currently concentrated. “The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all its objectives is beyond discussion,” added Netanyahu in a meeting with relatives of kidnapped people and victims of the October 7 attack, alluding to the three objectives that he has set in these almost seven months of war: recover the hostages, put an end to the military force of Hamas and ensure that Gaza stops being a “threat” to Israel.
Prior to his visit to Jerusalem, Blinken on Tuesday visited Jordan's first convoy of aid trucks heading to Gaza through a crossing recently opened by Israel through the Erez Pass, in the north of the strip. Blinken called for more actions in this direction.
However, a group of Israeli settlers attacked two Jordanian aid convoys bound for Gaza early yesterday, according to the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Four men who “blocked aid trucks (going) to Gaza” near the large West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumim were arrested by Israeli police, Honenu, an Israeli legal aid agency, reported. According to a Jordanian official, the shipment would supply between 100 and 150 families for a week.
Jordan, which maintains diplomatic relations with Israel and has a large Palestinian population, is particularly sensitive to tensions in neighboring Palestinian territories. In mid-April, Amman shot down Iranian drones fired at Israel. While collaborating with the United States, the Jordanian kingdom wants to avoid being affected by a possible conflict.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, warned on Tuesday that the Israeli incursion into Rafah would represent an “unbearable escalation” that would have a “devastating impact” on the Palestinian enclave itself, which would “kill thousands of civilians,” but also in the occupied West Bank and throughout the region, to which Deputy Secretary General Martin Griffiths added that the improvements in the delivery of aid that Israel and the United States are planning for Gaza “cannot justify an Israeli offensive in Rafah.”
