Blinken arrives in Israel as Hamas rejects US ‘diktats' in truce push

AFP | Palestinian Territories

The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com   

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken arrived in Israel yesterday seeking a Gaza ceasefire deal that could help avert a wider war, while a senior Hamas official dismissed "American diktats" in negotiations.

Making his ninth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war began with Palestinian militants' October 7 attack, the secretary of state is due to meet Israeli leaders before truce talks resume in Cairo.

Blinken will meet Egyptian leaders to discuss indirect truce talks between Israel and Hamas, which are set to resume within days in Cairo, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said. Blinken will travel to Egypt on Tuesday after talks in Israel.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have reported progress in negotiations to clinch a ceasefire in the more than 10-month-old war, and a US official said remaining gaps were "bridgeable".

But Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP that optimism a deal was close after two days of talks in Doha was "an illusion".

"We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats," he said.

A framework proposal laid out by US President Joe Biden in late May and later endorsed by the UN Security Council would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks as Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters the besieged Gaza Strip. Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded.

But the stakes have risen since the late July killings in quick succession of Iran-backed militant leaders, including Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and as the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza has deepened with a feared polio outbreak.

Israeli evacuation orders have "reduced the safe zone" in the south of the territory, leaving "no more space" for displaced Palestinians, said 32-year-old Samah Dib.

Some people "are sleeping on the street" while clean water is scarce and "there's food at the markets, but it's very expensive and we have no money left", added Dib, one of those displaced.

As efforts towards a longsought truce continued, so has the violence in Gaza but also in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hamas ally Hezbollah have traded near-daily fire throughout the war.

Civil defence rescuers in Hamas-run Gaza reported seven killed in Israeli bombardment in Deir al-Balah and four others in air strikes on the northern Jabalia refugee camp.

The latest killings helped push the Gaza health ministry’s war death toll to 40,099.