EL ALAMEIN: Top US diplomat Antony Blinken met Egypt’s president Tuesday for talks about a Gaza ceasefire after saying the Zionist entity had accepted a US “bridging proposal” for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same. The Palestinian group said it was “keen to reach a ceasefire” agreement but protested US modifications in the latest proposal, accusing the Zionist entity of “setting new conditions”.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East in more than 10 months of the Zionist-Hamas war, flew from the Zionist entity to the Egyptian Mediterranean city of El Alamein, where he met with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and other officials. “The time has come to end the ongoing war,” Sisi told Blinken, according to an Egyptian statement, warning of the consequences of “the conflict expanding regionally”.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce, which diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, after meeting with Blinken, “expressed his hope that the coming round of negotiations sees a genuine (Zionist) political will to end the war”, an official statement said. More truce talks are expected in Egypt this week.

From El Alamein, Blinken was to head to a meeting with Qatari Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in Doha, where ceasefire mediators held talks last week with Zionist negotiators. Hamas had called on the mediators to implement a framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The Iran-backed movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal, which Washington had put forward after two days of meetings in Doha, “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions”. And on Monday, responding to comments by Biden that it was “backing away” from a deal, Hamas said the “misleading claims... do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a ceasefire”.

It called Biden’s remarks an “American green light for the Zionist extremist government to commit more crimes against defenseless civilians”. Hamas added Biden’s remarks reflect a clear “American bias” towards the Zionist entity and Washington’s complicity in the “war of extermination against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip”.

The group said it is committed to a ceasefire framework outlined by Biden on May 31 which he said had been proposed by the Zionist entity. It described the latest US modifications to that plan as “a coup against” the previous framework, accusing Washington of “acquiescing” to conditions set by Netanyahu.

“Netanyahu was always the one obstructing an agreement and setting new conditions and demands,” Hamas said, calling on “the US administration to reverse its policy of blind bias towards the Zionist war criminals”. It called on the “mediators to assume their responsibilities” and oblige the Zionist entity to accept the original proposal.

One of the main sticking points has been Hamas’ long-standing demand for a “complete” withdrawal of Zionist troops from all parts of Gaza, which the Zionist entity has repeatedly rejected. Blinken said Monday he had “a very constructive meeting” with Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that (the Zionist entity) accepts the bridging proposal”.

Fears of a regional escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond after a Zionist attack last month killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, shortly after a Zionist strike on Beirut killed a top Hezbollah commander. The powerful Lebanese group said it launched rockets at Zionist army positions in the annexed Golan Heights on Tuesday, in the latest of the cross-border exchanges which have raged almost daily since the Gaza war began.

Blinken said on Monday that there was “a real sense of urgency here, across the region” to end the war. He said ongoing mediation efforts were “probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire”.

Zionist military operations in Hamas-ruled Gaza have continued throughout the truce talks. A Zionist strike hit a school in Gaza City where the civil defense agency said at least 12 Palestinians were killed and the Zionist military said a Hamas command center was based. Thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in the facility, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

AFP photos showed the Mustafa Hafiz school partly reduced to rubble, with Palestinians fleeing after the strike. In recent weeks across Gaza, the Zionist entity has struck numerous schools. The Zionist offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,173 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, mostly women and children. The military said Zionist forces had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from the southern Gaza district of Khan Yunis. – AFP