Blinken to brief Israeli leaders on cease-fire and hostage talks as war in Gaza enters 5th month

TEL AVIV – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was once set to meet Israeli leaders on Wednesday as Hamas urged it was once open to a brand new ceasefire and hostage liberate deal, however either side stay dug in on up to now elusive objectives as the war enters its 5th month.

The deadliest spherical of preventing in the historical past of the Israeli-Palestinian warfare has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, leveled entire neighborhoods, pushed the majority of Gaza’s inhabitants from their properties, and driven a quarter of the population to starvation.

Iran-backed militant teams around the area have performed assaults, most commonly on U.S. and Israeli objectives, in harmony with the Palestinians, drawing reprisals as the danger of a much wider warfare grows.

Israel stays deeply shaken by way of Hamas’ Oct 7 attack, in which militants burst during the nation’s vaunted defenses and rampaged throughout southern Israel, killing some 1,200 other folks, most commonly civilians, and abducting some 250, round part of whom stay in captivity in Gaza.

The United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt have proposed a cease-fire of a number of weeks in go back for a phased liberate of the hostages. Hamas spoke back to the be offering overdue Tuesday in what it stated was once a “positive spirit” whilst reiterating its core calls for for an finish to the Israeli offensive and the discharge of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, which President Joe Biden stated have been “a little over the top.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war will continue until “total victory” over Hamas and the go back of all of the final hostages.

Blinken, who is on his fifth visit to the region since the war broke out, is trying to advance the cease-fire talks while pushing for a larger postwar settlement in which Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel in return for a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

But the increasingly unpopular Netanyahu is opposed to Palestinian statehood, and his hawkish governing coalition could collapse if he is seen as making too many concessions.

Blinken acknowledged “there’s still a lot of work to be done.” But he said he still believed an agreement on the hostages was possible. At a press conference in Qatar on Tuesday, he said a pathway to more lasting peace was “coming ever more sharply into focus” however will require “onerous selections” by way of the area’s leaders.

MISERY DEEPENS IN DEVASTATED GAZA

There is little communicate of grand diplomatic bargains in Gaza, the place Palestinians yearn for an finish to preventing that has upended each side in their lives.

“We pray to God that it stops,” stated Ghazi Abu Issa, who fled his house and sought safe haven in the central the city of Deir al-Balah. “There is no water, electricity, food or bathrooms.” Those living in tents have been drenched by winter rains and flooding. “We have been humiliated,” he stated.

The Palestinian loss of life toll from 4 months of war has reached 27,585, in accordance to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The ministry does now not distinguish between civilians and warring parties in its depend however says lots of the useless had been ladies and kids.

Hamas has continued to put up stiff resistance across the territory, and its police force has returned to the streets in places where Israeli troops have pulled back. Hamas is still holding over 130 hostages, but around 30 of them are believed to be dead, with the vast majority killed on Oct. 7.

Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas that make up two-thirds of the tiny coastal territory. That covers the prewar homes of three-quarters of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, according to the U.N. humanitarian office. Most of the displaced are packed into the southern town of Rafah near the border with Egypt, where many are living in squalid tent camps and overflowing U.N.-run shelters.

ISRAELIS AGONIZE OVER FATE OF HOSTAGES

In Israel, the focus is on the plight of the hostages, with family members and the wider public demanding a deal with Hamas, fearful that time is running out. Israeli forces have only rescued one hostage, while Hamas says several were killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue missions.

More than 100 hostages, mostly women and children, were freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Thousands have taken section in weekly protests calling for the discharge of the hostages and not easy new elections. But Netanyahu is beholden to far-right coalition allies who’ve threatened to carry down the federal government if he concedes an excessive amount of in the negotiations.

That may spell the top of Netanyahu’s lengthy political occupation and disclose him to prosecution over long-standing corruption allegations.

But the longer the war continues, the greater risk it spills over into other countries, drawing the U.S. and its allies even deeper into a volatile region.

Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militant group have been locked in a low-intensity conflict along the border since the start of the war in Gaza, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge in violence as Israel has launched nightly arrest raids.

Iran-backed groups in Syria and Iraq have launched dozens of attacks against bases housing U.S. troops and killed three American soldiers last week, drawing a wave of retaliatory airstrikes. The U.S. and Britain have also carried out strikes against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in response to their attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea and disruption of world industry.

The Houthis, who painting their assaults as a blockade of Israel however have focused ships and not using a recognized connection to the rustic, attacked two more ships early Tuesday.

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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip and Magdy from Cairo.

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