
Outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a final press briefing from the press briefing room at the Department of State today (Thursday), during which he spoke about the ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization that was announced yesterday.
In response to a question about the delay in Israel's approval of the deal due to Hamas' last-minute demands, Blinken said that this was "not surprising" given how difficult it was to achieve a ceasefire deal over the previous 15 months and that he does not expect this to delay the implementation of the deal on Sunday.
"It's not exactly surprising that in a process, in a negotiation, that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end. We're tying up that loose end as we speak. I've been on the phone in one way or another all morning with Brett McGurk, with our Qatari friends, and I'm very confident that this is moving forward and we'll see the start of the implementation of the agreement on Sunday.," Blinken said.
Later, Blinken reiterated his observation that one of the factors that caused Hamas to refuse to agree to a ceasefire was when it thought there was too much "daylight" between the US and Israel and American pressure on Israel, and therefore the Biden Administration tried to keep its disagreements with Israeli policy private.
The "loose end" the Secretary referred to is the decision by Hamas to demand new conditions for the hostage deal after it had been announced.
The Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued a statement early Thursday morning in which it said, "Prime Minister Netanyahu held a conference call a short while ago with the negotiation team in Doha, who reported to him on last-minute attempts by Hamas to backtrack from the understandings of May 27."
"Among other things – contrary to a specific clause that grants Israel the veto power over the release of mass murderers who are symbols of terrorism, Hamas is demanding to dictate the identities of these terrorists. The Prime Minister instructed the negotiation team to stand firm on the agreed-upon understandings and to reject outright Hamas's last-minute attempts at extortion," the statement added.
This evening, political sources stated that these issued had been overcome and the Cabinet will vote to approve the deal tomorrow.