The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is to arrive in Israel as part of Washington’s intensifying diplomatic push to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza that will end the 10-month-old war even as a top Hamas official dismissed optimism about a deal as “an illusion”.
The top US diplomat’s ninth trip to the region since the war began in October last year comes days after the US put forward bridging proposals that it and mediators Qatar and Egypt believe would close gaps between the warring parties.
US officials have cited fresh optimism to bring the deal over the finish line but also caution that there is still work to be done.
“What we’ve done is taken the gaps that remain and have bridged those in a way that we think basically is a deal that is now ready to close and implement and move forward,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters on Friday.
However Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP: “To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion.”
“We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats,” he added.
In Israel, Blinken is expected to meet with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials.
The negotiations are taking place in the shadow of a feared regional escalation. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July.
Washington has repeatedly warned Iran not to go ahead with any retaliatory action against Israel. The US official said such an act could have “cataclysmic” consequences, particularly for Iran.
Foreign ministers of the UK, France, Germany and Italy in a joint statement threw their support behind the ongoing ceasefire talks, urging all sides to avoid any “escalatory action.”
Talks on how to implement the deal are expected to continue early next week, before senior officials reconvene in Cairo, with the aim to conclude the deal later in the week in Cairo.
Israel’s negotiating team on Saturday expressed “cautious optimism” on the possibility of advancing a deal, according to a statement on Saturday from Netanyahu’s office.
Hamas spokesperson Jihad Taha told Al Jazeera TV on Saturday that Israel had added conditions in the ceasefire talks and accused Netanyahu of using them to hinder efforts.
Even as hopes grew for a ceasefire, Israel continued its deadly assault on Gaza.
At least 18 Palestinians from the same family were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike in the Gaza town of Zawayda on Saturday, hospital officials said, as Israel issued new evacuation orders, citing Hamas rocket fire nearby.
Saturday’s airstrike hit a house and adjacent warehouse sheltering displaced people at the entrance to the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, where casualties were taken. An Associated Press reporter there counted the dead.
Among those killed was Sami Jawad al-Ejlah, a wholesaler who coordinated with the Israeli military to bring meat and fish to Gaza. The dead also included his two wives, 11 of their children ages 2 to 22, the children’s grandmother and three other relatives, according to a list provided by the hospital.
“He was a peaceful man,” said Abu Ahmed, a neighbour. More than 40 civilians were sheltering in the house and warehouse at the time, he said.
Israel also carried out a strike on Lebanon on Saturday that killed 10 people including a mother and her two children, according to the country’s health ministry. The strike came despite a warning from US president Joe Biden on Friday that “no one in the region should take actions to undermine this [ceasefire and hostage deal] process”.
The latest round of war in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on 7 October when Hamas fighters rampaged into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities. The number does not include the thousands believed to be buried under the rubble or those who have died due to malnutrion or lack of medical treatment due to Israel’s destruction of the hospital system.
Israel claims it has eliminated 17,000 Hamas fighters without providing any evidence.
Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
