Top US diplomat Blinken visiting Israel as Gaza truce efforts set to resume

The United States’s top diplomat is visiting Israel as part of Washington’s efforts to secure a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza in which more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the besieged enclave since last October.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to arrive in Israel on Sunday, days after the US put forward proposals that it and mediators Qatar and Egypt believe would close gaps between Israel and Hamas. Truce talks are expected to resume in Cairo in the coming days after two days of negotiations in Doha this week.

Regional tensions

“Hamas has learned from the past that every time they were closer to a deal and everyone would think it was within reach, the Israelis would do something different, like committing atrocities, targeting or assassinating a leader,” Hassan Harari, a professor of international affairs at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.

Among the sticking points are conditions that Israel added since the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on the proposal outlined in May – including continued Israeli presence on the Philadelphi Corridor separating the Egyptian region of Sinai from the Gaza Strip, and the establishment of checkpoints to monitor the movement of people from south to north.

“Netanyahu is procrastinating to make it tough for Hamas to agree,” Harari said. “But also from the Israeli perspective, there are some circles who believe these demands are legitimate.”

The discussions will also include the list of captives’ names to be released in Gaza, the list of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, and the schedule for their release.

“No doubt [Blinken’s] largest challenge is likely to be to convince the top level of the Israeli government, Netanyahu in particular, to be more flexible with regards to their demands when it comes to this deal,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi.

“There is a great deal of negativity from a number of experts, from people here on the ground with regards to the success of this deal, because they say what the US and Israel are doing is creating a sense of cautious optimism while shifting the goalpost and shifting the blame on Hamas for not agreeing to a deal,” Basravi added, reporting from Amman, Jordan due to Israel’s ban on Al Jazeera.

Hamas as well as some analysts and Israeli protesters have accused Netanyahu of hamstringing a deal to safeguard his hard-right ruling coalition.

“We have a prime minister that is not so much willing to release the hostages, to finish the war, because he has he own interests,” Yossi, a 53-year-old protester in Tel Aviv, told the AFP news agency.

Negotiations are unfolding under the threat of a regional escalation, with Iran pledging to retaliate against Israel following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.