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A day after the United Nations Security Council endorsed a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal for Gaza, the world is waiting for the Hamas leader to respond, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Tuesday.
Placing the responsibility squarely on Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, Blinken, speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, asked whether the group would act in the best interests of the Palestinian people by accepting the deal. At least, he said, it would stop the fighting and allow more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza.
Alternatively, he said, Hamas could be “babysitting a man,” Mr. Sinwar, believed to be hiding underground in Gaza, “as the people he claims to represent continue to suffer in the crossfire he himself has created.” .
Although President Biden has described the US-backed ceasefire plan as one originally proposed by Israel last month, Israeli officials have not publicly endorsed it and have not said whether they would honor the agreement if Hamas accepts it.
After meeting with senior Israeli leaders on Monday, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “I think, again, there is a strong consensus behind moving the proposal forward,” Blinken said.
“But right now it really depends on one person,” he added, referring to Mr. Sinwar.
Blinken said he received an explicit guarantee from Netanyahu that he would continue to support the proposal, despite doubts the Israeli leader sowed last week when he called the idea of a permanent negotiated ceasefire, which Hamas has called essential, “ a “not a start”.
Asked how that difference could be reconciled, Blinken emphasized the value of achieving an immediate ceasefire in the first phase of the proposed three-phase deal. “The commitment in accepting the proposal is to seek that lasting ceasefire,” he said. “But that has to be negotiated.”
Along with the immediate ceasefire, the first phase of the agreement calls for the release of all hostages held in Gaza in exchange for more Palestinians remaining in Israeli prisons, the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory.
The second phase requires a permanent ceasefire with the agreement of both parties. The third phase would consist of a multi-year plan for the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of the remains of the deceased hostages.
Blinken spoke on the patio of a seaside hotel in Tel Aviv as several relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, with whom he had just met briefly, looked on. Several held signs with photographs of their loved ones that read: “Bring them home.”
On the second day of his eighth visit to the Middle East since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, Blinken called Monday’s unanimous Security Council vote a sign that Hamas will be isolated if it does not accept the proposed deal. , which President Biden endorsed in a speech on May 31.
“The United Nations Security Council, really speaking on behalf of the entire international community, made it as clear as possible that this is what the world is looking for,” Blinken said.
In a statement on Monday, Hamas said it “welcomes what was included in the Security Council resolution that affirmed the permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the complete withdrawal, the exchange of prisoners, the reconstruction, the return of the displaced to their areas of residence, the rejection of any demographic change or reduction in the area of the Gaza Strip and the delivery of the necessary aid to our people in the strip.
Blinken called that statement “a hopeful sign.” But he added that what matters “is the word of the Hamas leadership in Gaza,” specifically Mr. Sinwar.
Blinken spoke to reporters before leaving for Amman, Jordan, where he was scheduled to attend a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza. He also met Tuesday morning with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, who on Sunday pulled his centrist party out of Israel’s wartime emergency government in protest of its handling of the war. by Netanyahu.