Hamas is reticent to agree to terms.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted a proposal for a temporary ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip, pushing Hamas to close the deal with their own statement of acceptance.
President Biden first proposed a temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas on May 31, but negotiations between the two parties have been arduous. While President Biden’s administration has pledged for many weeks that they were close to reaching a final agreement, Hamas has repeatedly denied these statements, saying that current iterations of the deal include new conditions that they will not accept.
Hamas continues to require terms that include steps toward a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, terms that were not initially proposed in President Biden’s May 31 agreement framework. However, Secretary Blinken questioned the alignment of Hamas’s public statements with their private conversations.
“We’ve seen public statements before that don’t fully reflect where Hamas is,” Secretary Blinken said during his press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
“The critical next step is for Hamas to accept the bridging proposal that Prime Minister Netanyahu has now accepted, and then to engage with everyone else on making sure that we have clear understandings of how each party would actually implement the commitments that it’s undertaken in this agreement.”
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For Secretary Blinken to seek God’s wisdom as he promotes the ceasefire agreement.
- For U.S., Israeli, and Arab nations’ leaders to be prudent in their negotiations with Hamas.
- For the people of Israel and for the peace of Jerusalem.
Sources: The Hill, VOA News
