Best Chance For Gaza Truce, Says Blinken

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Top US diplomat Antony Blinken on Monday said Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a Gaza truce deal and urged Palestinian resistance movement Hamas to do the same, having earlier said the talks may be the "last opportunity" for a ceasefire.
Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since October 7 , said he had "a very constructive meeting" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who "confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal.
"He supports it. It's now incumbent on Hamas to do the same," Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.
Washington put forward the proposal last week after the most recent round of talks in Qatar.
Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on mediators to implement a framework outlined in late May by US President Joe Biden, rather than hold more negotiations.
The movement on Sunday said the bridging proposal "responds to Netanyahu's conditions" and leaves him "fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators."
Blinken said Netanyahu had "committed to sending his senior expert team" to further negotiations.
Months of on-off negotiations with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.
Blinken is due to travel today to Egypt where ceasefire talks are expected to resume this week. He said he will then go on to Qatar.
Hamas insisted on "a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip", saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations within the territory.
Earlier yesterday, the US secretary of state had said, "This is a decisive moment -- probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security".
Diplomats say reaching a truce accord could help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East.
"We're working to make sure that there is no escalation," Blinken said.
Biden said on Sunday that a ceasefire was "still possible" and that the United States was "not giving up".
The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza. During Blinken's visit to Israel, pro-Palestinian protests took place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, ahead of November's presidential election.
Western ally Jordan, hostage supporters who protested in Tel Aviv during Blinken's visit, and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu in order for an agreement to be reached.
The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.
Violence raged on in Gaza and along the Israel-Lebanon border where Israeli forces and Hamas's Iran-backed ally Hezbollah have traded near-daily fire throughout the war.
Israel struck Hezbollah weapons depots deep in Lebanon's east, in the Bekaa area, a source close to the group said.
An Israeli soldier and two Hezbollah fighters were killed in cross-border clashes, the Israeli military and Hezbollah said yesterday.

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