US-Israel differ over pause in military operations in Gaza while death toll crosses 9,220

TEL AVIV: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hear demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza when he meets Middle East foreign ministers in Jordan, the country’s foreign ministry said. Blinken’s visit came as a US official said talks about a “very significant” pause in fighting are underway, despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise that such a plan would be refused unless the hostages being held by Hamas are released.

US officials have said they hope a pause in the fighting will allow humanitarian aid to reach desperate civilians in Gaza and help negotiations to free the more than 240 hostages seized by Hamas during the attack, The Guardian said.

However, after meeting Blinken, Netanyahu warned there could be no “temporary truce” in Gaza unless Hamas releases the hostages it holds, the report added.

On Friday, Blinken warned Israel that it risks destroying an eventual possibility for peace unless it acts swiftly to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza for Palestinian civilians as it intensifies its war against Hamas.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against growing US pressure for a “humanitarian pause” in the nearly month-old war to protect civilians and allow more aid into Gaza, insisting there would be no temporary cease-fire until the roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas are released.

Blinken, in a blunt call for Israel to pause military operations in the territory to allow for the immediate and increased delivery of assistance, said the current situation would drive Palestinians toward further radicalism and effectively end prospects for any eventual resumption of peace talks to end the conflict.

“There will be no partners for peace if they’re consumed by humanitarian catastrophe and alienated by any perceived indifference to their plight,” Blinken said, even as the call for a temporary pause without the release by Hamas of Israeli hostages was swiftly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israel would be “going with full steam ahead.”

The comments to reporters in Tel Aviv, following meetings with Netanyahu and other senior officials, amounted to some of the Biden administration’s strongest warnings to Israel since the brutal Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 civilians and soldiers. But the remarks were also tempered by Blinken’s continued support for Israel’s “right and obligation to defend itself, defend its people and take the steps necessary to try to ensure that this never happens again.”

He described being moved by additional video he’d been shown in Israel by the Hamas militants who carried out the attacks, including a father killed in front of his young children.

“It is striking, and in some ways shocking, that the brutality of the slaughter has receded so quickly in the memories of so many, but not in Israel and not in America,” he said.