Blinken Travels to Israel Amid Push for Gaza Cease-Fire

[Pelican Press 0]

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Blinken Travels to ******* Amid Push for Gaza Cease-*****

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in ******* on Sunday to try to clinch a deal that could end the war in Gaza, even as the Middle East remained on edge amid the looming threat of wider regional conflict.

The visit, part of an intensive diplomatic campaign led by the Biden administration, comes days after *******’s negotiating team held talks in Qatar with senior ********* officials, as well as Qatari and Egyptian representatives who are mediating between ******* and ******.

Those talks ended without a major breakthrough, but the White House said on Friday that the ******* States had put forward a “bridging proposal,” with Egyptian and Qatari support, aimed at closing the remaining gaps between the sides. It said that teams would continue to hash out details and that senior negotiators hoped to reconvene in Cairo before the end of this week to finalize an agreement.

While the Biden administration had suggested that the process was

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of ******* cautioned on Sunday that the negotiations were “very complex” and called his approach to the talks one of give and take — “not give and give.”

“There are things we can be flexible about, and there are things we cannot be flexible about,” he said in remarks recorded at the beginning of his weekly cabinet meeting.

“We know very well how to distinguish between the two,” Mr. Netanyahu added, saying that he was insisting on certain principles that he considered vital for *******’s security.

Mr. Blinken landed in ******* on Sunday evening. On Monday morning, he is scheduled to meet in Jerusalem with Mr. Netanyahu, whom some officials have accused of stalling by adding new conditions for a deal. Mr. Blinken will also meet with *******’s president, Isaac Herzog, and the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, according to senior State Department officials. On Tuesday, Mr. Blinken will travel to Egypt to continue his efforts to broker an agreement.

While Mr. Netanyahu has portrayed ****** as the obstacle to reaching an agreement, ****** officials say the ******** leader is to blame.

****** Hamdan, a ****** spokesman based in Beirut,

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Al Jazeera English on Sunday that the ******** side had introduced new ideas in the cease-***** negotiations and was not prepared to withdraw all its forces from Gaza or commit to a permanent cease-***** — conditions that the group has set for any deal. ******* has balked at making such commitments from the outset.

The deal that Mr. Blinken is hoping to help seal would be carried out in three phases and is based on principles ***** out by President Biden on May 31, then subsequently endorsed by the ******* Nations Security Council. It would usher in a cease-***** in Gaza and see hostages held in the enclave freed in exchange for ************ prisoners and detainees held in *******.

The Biden administration has created a degree of linkage between the cease-***** efforts and the threat of Iranian-led retaliation against ******* for the back-to-back assassinations of senior figures from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, and ****** in Beirut and Tehran in late July.

Mr. Biden said that

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he was sending Mr. Blinken to ******* — beyond continuing “intensive efforts” to conclude a deal — was “to underscore that with the comprehensive cease-***** and ******** release deal now in sight, no one in the region should take actions to undermine this process.”

Amid fears that any reprisals and subsequent ******** counterstrikes could escalate into a broader regional war, ********* officials have expressed hope that progress on the diplomatic front could stave off a broader conflagration.

Mr. Netanyahu warned on Sunday that ******* was prepared to meet any threat, defensively and offensively, saying the country was “determined to exact a very heavy price” from anyone who dared to ******* it.

In the meantime, the fighting in Gaza, where local authorities say more than 40,000 Palestinians have been ******* since the war began, has continued. The Gaza Civil Defense emergency service said on Sunday that 14 people were ******* in strikes in Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.

The ******** military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an earlier statement, the military had said that its troops were operating in the areas of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah, where ******** aircraft had “struck targets.”

Hiba Yazbek, Gabby Sobelman, Myra Noveck, Johnatan Reiss and Robert Jimison contributed reporting.

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#Blinken #Travels #******* #Push #Gaza #CeaseFire

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