US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged both Israel and Hamas to finalize a Gaza truce, standing by US assessments that 90 percent of a deal was ready.
Blinken said that the United States would be offering further ideas in coming days through mediators Egypt and Qatar in hopes of sealing an agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Fox News on Thursday denied a US official’s assessment that 90 percent of a deal was ready, saying “it’s not close.”
But Blinken repeated the assessment at a news conference during a visit to Haiti, saying, “I think based on what I’ve seen, 90 percent is agreed.”
“It’s really incumbent on both parties to get to yes on these remaining issues,” Blinken said.
“As close as I believe we are to getting a ceasefire agreement, every day that goes by where it is not finalized and the parties don’t say, ‘yes, period,’ is a day in which something else happens, and there is an intervening event which simply pushes things off and runs the risk of derailing what is a pretty fragile apple cart,” he said.
The United States in recent weeks has pushed a proposal to bridge gaps between both sides, which include disagreements over Netanyahu’s insistence on leaving some Israeli troops on the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Blinken said he believed that Netanyahu, who has put a top priority on normalizing diplomatic relations with Arab states, could still reach a historic deal with Saudi Arabia, the guardian of Islam’s two holiest shrines.
Blinken did not rule out an agreement before Biden leaves office in January.
“I think if we can get a ceasefire in Gaza, there remains an opportunity through the balance of this administration to move forward on normalization,” he said.
