A Hamas delegation is due on Monday, April 29, in Egypt, where it will respond to Israel's latest proposal for a truce in Gaza and hostage release after almost seven months of war. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate an agreement between Israel and Hamas for months, but a flurry of diplomacy in recent days appeared to suggest a new push toward halting the fighting.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his seventh visit to the region since the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, arrived Monday in Saudi Arabia and will also travel to Israel and neighboring Jordan later this week, a State Department official said.
While Israel has pledged to go after Hamas battalions in Rafah despite mounting global concern for Palestinian civilians sheltering in the southern Gaza Strip city, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the government may "suspend" the invasion if an agreement is reached. The war has brought besieged Gaza to the brink of famine, the United Nations and humanitarian officials say, reduced much of the territory to rubble and raised fears of broader conflict.
A Hamas source close to the negotiations had told Agence France Presse the group "is open to discussing the new proposal positively" and is keen for an agreement that "guarantees a permanent ceasefire, the free return of displaced people, an acceptable deal for [prisoner] exchange and ensuring an end to the siege" in Gaza. Hamas has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire – a condition Israel has rejected.
As diplomatic efforts intensified, Blinken arrived in Riyadh for talks with Arab and European foreign ministers aimed at pushing a ceasefire and increasing humanitarian aid into Gaza. His Saudi counterpart, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said on Sunday that the international community had failed Gazans.
"The situation in Gaza obviously is a catastrophe by every measure – humanitarian, but also a complete failing of the existing political system to deal with that crisis," Prince Faisal told a World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in Riyadh. He reiterated that only "a credible, irreversible path to a Palestinian state" will prevent the world from confronting "this same situation" again in the future. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government has rejected calls for Palestinian statehood.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, appealed at the WEF meeting for the United States to stop Israel from invading Rafah, which he said would be "the biggest disaster in the history of the Palestinian people."
Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, signaled on Saturday that Israel would be willing to call off an invasion of Rafah if Hamas accepted a deal to release hostages. "If there is a deal, we will suspend the operation," he told Israel's Channel 12.
In February, Netanyahu said any truce deal would only delay – not prevent – a Rafah operation. Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said in a statement that "Rafah is important in the long struggle against Hamas" but that "the government will not fight the right (...) to exist" if it prevents the return of the hostages.
US President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone Sunday and "reviewed ongoing talks to secure the release of hostages together with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza," the White House statement said. The two leaders "also discussed increases in the delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza," the statement said, including "preparations" to open new crossings to northern Gaza, where conditions have been particularly dire.