After meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo, Blinken said Hamas was the only side that had yet to agree to Biden's proposal, which Washington says already had Israel's backing before US President Biden announced it on May 31.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed Hamas on Monday for holding up a ceasefire in Gaza, as the top US diplomat conducted a Middle East peace mission to deliver President Joe Biden's latest proposed plan to end the Gaza war.
After meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo, Blinken said Hamas was the only side that had yet to agree to Biden's proposal, which Washington says already had Israel's backing before Biden announced it on May 31. Washington says its proposal envisions a ceasefire in stages, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war. But Israel still says it will agree only to temporary pauses until Hamas is defeated, while Hamas says it will not accept a truce without guarantees that the war will end.
"My message to governments throughout the region, to people throughout the region, is - if you want a ceasefire, press Hamas to say 'yes'," Blinken told reporters before leaving for Israel where he met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, that Blinken's comments were "an example of bias toward Israel and it offers American cover to the holocaust conducted by the occupation in Gaza".
In his talks with Netanyahu on Monday evening, the US State Department said Blinken had emphasised the importance of a post-war plan in Gaza as well as the need to prevent the conflict from spreading. The war has now entered its ninth month since Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage in a rampage through southern Israel. Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to the wasteland.
Ahead of Blinken's trip, his eighth to the region since the start of the war, Israel and Hamas both doubled down on hardline positions that have scuppered all previous attempts to end the fighting. At the same time, Israel has pressed on with assaults in central and southern Gaza, among the bloodiest of the war. "We are committed to total victory," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office, quoting remarks he made on Sunday to relatives of Israelis killed in Gaza. He said he would reject a Hamas demand to "commit to stopping the war without achieving our goals of eliminating Hamas".
Hamas and its allies Islamic Jihad said in a joint statement: "Any agreement must ensure a permanent end to the aggression and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction, lifting the blockade and a serious swap deal."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from Reuters)
READ | UN Security Council passes US-drafted proposal aimed at ending Israel-Hamas war in Gaza
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