US hopeful after Hamas says ready to negotiate hostage deal

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was hopeful the hostage deal could move forward after Hamas said it was ready to negotiate the details of a three-phase agreement first unveiled on May 31 and backed Monday by the United Nations Security Council.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, who is based outside Gaza, said on Tuesday his group accepted the UNSC resolution and was ready to negotiate over the specifics, but asked the US to guarantee that Israel was on board.

"The U.S. administration is facing a real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to immediately end the war in an implementation of the UN Security Council resolution," Abu Zuhri said.

Hamas responds to UNSC resolution

The Hamas statement, however, the second of its kind since the UNSC voted 14-0 in New York to back the proposal, had not translated into a formal notification to the mediating countries Qatar and Egypt.

“It is a hopeful sign,” Blinken said as he wrapped up a two-day trip to Israel, but so was the statement that Hamas made after US President Joe Biden unveiled the original proposal. 

What is determinative, however, is the position of the Hamas leadership in Gaza, he said.

“We await the answer from Hamas, and that will speak volumes about what they want, what they’re looking for,” Blinken said.

Talks continue in the Middle East

While he was in Israel, Blinken met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid who heads the Yesh Atid party, MK Benny Gantz who heads the National Unity Party, and families of the eight hostages with dual US-Israeli citizenship.

Blinken referenced his meeting with Netanyahu and underscored Israeli support for the deal, in speaking with reporters in Tel Aviv before departing for Jordan.

“I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu last night, and he reaffirmed his commitment to the proposal.  I also had an opportunity to speak to Defense Minister Gallant and other senior Israelis this morning.  And I think there is a strong consensus, again, behind moving forward with the proposal,” Blinken said.

"Everyone has said yes except for Hamas.  And if Hamas doesn’t say yes, then this is clearly on them” if the war continues and spreads regionally," Blinken explained.

“The longer this goes on, the more chance there is, again, for the conflict to spread, for us to see problems evolve in other places. The longer this goes on, the greater the risk.

“We await the answer from Hamas, and that will speak volumes about what they want, what they’re looking for,” Blinken said.

The proposal attempts to bridge the difference between Hamas’s insistence that it would only consider a deal that would start with an Israeli agreement for a permanent ceasefire and a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a step that would live in military and governmental control of the enclave.

Israel has insisted that Hamas must be destroyed and any deal would have to ensure that Hamas had no military or governmental control in Gaza.

The proposal creates in its first six-week phase a lull in the fighting in exchange for the release of humanitarian hostages — women, sick, elderly, and infirmed — as well as the release of security prisoners.

On day 16 of the first phase, talks would begin on details for a permanent ceasefire. The second phase would include the release of the remaining live hostages. There are 120 hostages remaining in Gaza of which 43 are presumed to be deceased.

The deal is designed to allow for an agreement to move forward, in its first phase without resolving the differences between Israeli and Hamas. 

Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv that the proposal would put in place what he called an “immediate ceasefire” and it would commit the parties to “negotiate an enduring ceasefire,” he said.

“As long as those negotiations are ongoing, the [temporary] ceasefire that would take place immediately would remain in place, which is manifestly good for everyone.  And then we’ll have to see, but you’re not going to get to phase two, to an enduring ceasefire, unless you start with phase one.  So that’s where it begins.”

The US has hoped that in the negotiating process for phase two, it would find a diplomatic solution that would remove Hamas from Gaza. That solution would also inlace a day after plan for the enclave and push forward on a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia with a pathway for Palestinian statehood.

While in Israel, Blinken spoke with Netanyahu and other politicians about a day-after plan.

He told reporters that a cease-fire would also open “prospects for Israel to build enduring security, which is what this country needs and has wanted from day one of its existence, integration in the region with its neighbors.”

The hostage deal, “is the first step also down that path and in that direction.  So we want to see it come to fruition,” Blinken said.

He stressed that Biden was “resolutely committed to Israel’s security, and to its defense” and that the US was “committed to the defeat of Hamas, to ensure that it can’t govern Gaza again.” 

“Even as we’ve been working on this hostage ceasefire proposal, even as we’ve been working to try to make sure that the conflict doesn’t spread to other parts of the region, we’ve also been working on day after plans for Gaza – security, governance, rebuilding,” Blinken stated. 

Reuters contributed to this report.