U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli leaders on Wednesday as the United States hopes Hamas will accept the most recent ceasefire terms that would delay an Israeli military operation in Rafah the U.S. does not support.
He met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog as he continued his trip around the Middle East. Blinken, like several other U.S. officials, reiterated the administration’s stance against full-scale Israeli operations in Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza along the Egyptian border, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge due to the war.
Netanyahu repeated a day before meeting with Blinken that Israel intends to conduct operations in Rafah, which is also Hamas’s last stronghold in the strip.
“The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office. “We will enter Rafah, and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there — with or without a deal, in order to achieve the total victory.”
The U.S. has sought to convince Israel there are more precise operations it could conduct to target the remaining Hamas battalions in the area due to concerns about significant numbers of civilian casualties if it does not adequately account for their safety.
Israel and Hamas have been unable to agree to a second ceasefire agreement over the course of several months, though further concessions by Israel have renewed the prospects of a deal.
Earlier this week, Blinken called the current offer “extraordinarily generous” for Hamas and urged it to accept the offer “quickly.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller blamed Hamas for preventing a ceasefire in a readout of the Blinken-Netanyahu meeting.
“The Secretary discussed ongoing efforts to reach an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal and emphasized that it is Hamas that is standing in the way of a ceasefire,” he said.
The current proposal on the table reportedly includes Israeli concessions compared to the previous offer. Israeli leaders had demanded Hamas release 40 of the roughly 130 hostages it has held since Oct. 7, though the current deal would only call for the release of 33 people, according to the New York Times.
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One of the major disagreements in the ceasefire negotiations is whether the cessation of fighting will be temporary or permanent. A permanent ceasefire, which is what Hamas is demanding, would allow Hamas to stay in power in Gaza and regroup. Netanyahu and the Israelis want the ceasefire to be temporary so they can continue fighting the remaining Hamas battalions.
Netanyahu told Blinken that Israel would not accept any proposal that would end the war, according to Axios.