Blinken meets with Israeli officials about cease-fire in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Jerusalem. The two discussed efforts to release hostages, said State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller. The Hamas terrorist organization recently proposed new terms and conditions for a cease-fire agreement in Gaza. Just the day before, Blinken had met with Egyptian and Qatari officials on the second day of his fifth whirlwind trip through the Middle East since Israel’s war against Hamas began on Oct. 7 of last year. At a press conference with Qatari officials Tuesday night, Blinken said negotiators had received Hamas’s response to a cease-fire proposal.

What’s in Hamas’s new counter-proposal? Hamas on Tuesday maintained that it would not release hostages in exchange for anything less than the end of the war in Gaza. The counter-proposal calls for a 135-day—roughly four and a half months—cease-fire, with three separate stages. Under the proposal, Hamas would release all its hostages in exchange for Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza, ending its war efforts, and releasing Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Dig deeper: Listen to Jill Nelson’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about how the war in Gaza has pitted neighbors against neighbors.