Mossad Chief David Barnea is set to meet CIA Director William Burns in Qatar on Friday, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated that an agreement could be coalescing between Hamas and Israel for the release of hostages.
“The gaps are narrowing. And we’re continuing to push for an agreement in Doha,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Cairo during a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
He cautioned, however, that there is “still difficult work to get there. But I continue to believe it’s possible.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani and Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamal will also participate in the Friday talks, which Blinken hoped would lead to a pause in the war.He said the execution of a deal that could release some 40 of the remaining 134 hostages is at issue.
“The Israeli team that is present [in Doha] has the authority to reach an agreement,” Blinken told Al Arabiya English in a video interview earlier in the day.
He spoke amid reports that constraints had been put on the delegation. The war cabinet is expected to meet on Friday to discuss the talks.
Negotiation efforts amid Gaza crisis
“A very strong proposal was put on the table, and we have to see if Hamas will accept it,” Blinken said.
Blinken called on Hamas to reach an agreement with Israel as he spoke during his sixth visit to the region, which included a brief stop in Saudi Arabia and ahead of his visit to Israel on Friday.“ This could have happened immediately if they had laid down their weapons and released the hostages,” he said.
Blinken said that while he was in Saudi Arabia, he met with its Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to discuss normalization. “We’re continuing to make good progress. I believe we can reach an agreement, which would present a historic opportunity for two nations and the region as a whole.”
Blinken heads to Israel over the need for more humanitarian assistance in Gaza and US objections to the pending IDF military operation to destroy the remaining Hamas battalion in Rafah.
During his Cairo press conference, he had harsh words for Israel on the issue of humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians, stating that it had not done enough to prevent a hunger crisis in the enclave.
“Children should not be dying of malnutrition, in Gaza or anywhere else for that matter. A hundred percent of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity.“We must not allow that to continue,” Blinken stated.
The Secretary of State also clarified when it came to destroying Hamas in Rafah, it believed that “a major military operation in Rafah would be a mistake, something we don’t support.”“It’s also not necessary [to do that] to deal with Hamas,” Blinken stated.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that such a major operation is the only way that Israel can destroy the remaining Hamas battalions.
An Israeli team led by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi are expected to travel to the United States next week to discuss a Rafah operation. The US is expected to lay out Israeli plans for an alternative Rafah strategy that would include more targeted strikes.
“We’re going to have an opportunity next week to share that view with our Israeli counterparts in detail and to lay out our views on how to deal with the problem [of Rafah] differently,” Blinken stated.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is expected to head to Washington to meet with Defense Minister Lloyd Austin.
On an episode of the Call Me Back podcast with Dan Senor, Dermer insisted that a major Rafah operation would happen – with or without US support.
“We’re gonna go in and finish this job, and anybody who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand that the nerve of the Jews, that existential nerve, was touched” by Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, which sparked the Gaza war.
The Rafah operation is “going to happen, and it will happen, even if Israel is forced to fight alone, even if the entire world turns on Israel, including the United States,” he stated.
Israel is determined to destroy Hamas, even if it “leads to a potential breach with the United States,” Dermer said.
Dermer stated that eliminating that group was also critical to plans for the day after the war. Israel is expected to delay a Rafah operation should there be a hostage deal but has said that no permanent ceasefire can occur until Hamas has been driven out of that southern part of the enclave.
“It’s impossible to get to the day-after in Gaza without destroying Hamas,” Dermer said. “No other Palestinians will step forward to be involved in the leadership of the enclave until they know that the terror group is destroyed,” he said.
“You can have a lot of conversations about the day-after plan, but it won't work if you do it before there is a day-after Hamas,” Dermer said.
In Egypt, Blinken clarified that a Palestinian-controlled Gaza, absent Hamas, was part of a larger normalization arrangement between Israelis and the Arab world, which the Biden administration hoped to bring about this year.
Blinken said he spoke about this plan with Shoukry.
“We also talked about what would be necessary for lasting and enduring peace, and I think in our shared judgment, that includes a Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel,” Blinken said.
Separately in New York, the US on Friday morning will bring a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal to the United Nations Security Council for a vote, a spokesperson said.
“The United States has been working in earnest with Council members over the last several weeks on a resolution that will unequivocally support ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at securing an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal, which would get hostages released and help enable a surge in humanitarian aid,” Nate Evans, spokesperson for the US mission to the United Nations, said on Thursday.