A ceasefire-for-hostages deal with Hamas terrorists in Gaza is the “best chance” to restore stability in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed during a visit to Egypt on Wednesday.
“We all know that a ceasefire is the best chance to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to address risks to regional stability,” Blinken told reporters at a joint press conference in Cairo, speaking alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
Washington’s top diplomat said 15 paragraphs had been agreed out of 18 in the agreement, but that outstanding issues needed to be resolved.
“We’ve seen that in the intervening time, you might have an event, an incident—something that makes the process more difficult, that threatens to slow it, stop it, derail it—and anything of that nature, by definition, is probably not good in terms of achieving the result that we want, which is the ceasefire,” Blinken stated.
Abdelatty stressed that Cairo, which is one of the mediators, remains of the opinion that the Israel Defense Forces must withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border and Palestinians should manage the Rafah Crossing.
“Egypt reiterates its position: It rejects any military presence along the opposite side of the border crossing and the aforementioned corridor,” Abdelatty told reporters, in reference to the 8.7-mile-long Philadelphi Corridor between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Jerusalem might consider a withdrawal of troops from the border area as part of a hostage deal with Hamas, but only if a viable alternative can be found to prevent the terrorist organization from rearming itself through tunnels.
Blinken touched down in the Egyptian capital on Wednesday morning, his tenth trip to the Middle East since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
“The secretary will meet with Egyptian officials to discuss ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza that secures the release of all hostages, alleviates the suffering of the Palestinian people, and helps establish broader regional security,” according to the U.S. State Department.
Washington is still working with Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
No timetable was presented for a new draft agreement, but Miller said the United States was “working expeditiously to try to develop that proposal.”
Blinken said last week that more than 90% of the issues have been agreed to by both Israel and Hamas.
“So we’re down to a handful of issues, not even a handful of issues that are hard but fully resolvable in our judgment. And as we’ve said before, when you get down to the last 10%, the last 10 meters, those are almost by definition the hardest ground to cover, but we believe that these are fully resolvable,” said Blinken.
“Right now, we are working with our Egyptian and Qatari counterparts to work together to bridge any remaining gaps, and in the coming time, very soon, we’ll put that before the parties, and we’ll see what they say,” he added.
In Monday’s comments, Miller confirmed the two main obstacles to reaching an agreement: Jerusalem’s insistence on maintaining security control of the buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt, called the Philadelphi Corridor; and specifics regarding the Palestinian terrorists to be released from Israeli prisons in return for hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
