Hamas called on the United States to “exert real pressure” on Israel to reach a Gaza ceasefire agreement as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was no deal in the making.
The two sides have traded blame over stalling talks for a ceasefire and hostage exchange as Netanyahu faces pressure to seal a deal following the deaths of six Gaza captives.
Hamas’s Qatar-based lead negotiator Khalil al-Hayya called on the US to “exert real pressure on Netanyahu and his government” and “abandon their blind bias” towards Israel.
But Netanyahu said there is “not a deal in the making”.
“Unfortunately, it’s not close but we will do everything we can to get them to the point where they do make a deal,” he told US media.
Netanyahu insists that Israel must retain control over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border to prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas, whose October 7 attack on Israel started the war.
Hamas is demanding complete Israeli withdrawal from the area and on Thursday said Netanyahu’s position “aims to thwart reaching an agreement”.
The Palestinian militant group says a new deal is unnecessary because they agreed months ago to a truce outlined by Biden.
“We warn against falling into the trap of Netanyahu… who uses negotiations to prolong the aggression against our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
Washington has been pushing a proposal it says could bridge gaps between the warring sides, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying “90 percent is agreed”.
“It’s really incumbent on both parties to get to yes on these remaining issues,” Blinken said during a visit to Haiti.
At Israeli protests in several cities this week, Netanyahu’s critics have blamed him for hostages’ deaths, saying he has refused to make necessary concessions for striking a ceasefire deal.
“We’ll do everything so that all hostages will be with us. And if the leaders don’t want to sign a deal, we’ll make them,” said Gil Dickmann, cousin of Carmel Gat, one of the six hostages whose bodies were found in a Gaza tunnel last week.
Dickmann took part in a rally at Tel Aviv on Thursday evening, where crowds of demonstrators carried symbolic coffins in a procession, an AFP journalist reported.
