Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, says the hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas will take effect if the militant group accepts the terms.
Blinken said the deal is “ready to be concluded and implemented”.
“I believe we will get a ceasefire,” he said in Washington on Tuesday, adding that “at different moments, different parties have made it hard to finalise an agreement or events have delayed or derailed its completion”.
Talks of a ceasefire intensified on Monday after mediators gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of the deal.
Advertisement
Officials said the negotiations were the most serious they had been in months.
“For the past several months, Hamas has played the spoiler, but over the past several weeks, our intensive efforts have brought us to the brink of full and final agreement,” Blinken noted.
“On Sunday, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt put forward a final proposal. The ball is now in Hamas’ court,” he added.
Advertisement
The agreement is set to be implemented in three phases.
The first phase, intended to last 42 days, would see the release of 33 hostages held by Hamas and its allies, including women, children, men over the age of 50, and wounded people.
Israel would, in turn, release “many hundreds” of prisoners, including Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.
The Israeli military is also expected to begin withdrawing from population centres during the first phase but would remain along the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor—a clause of the agreement that did not sit well with Hamas.
Advertisement
Reports said negotiations to reach the second and third phases of the ceasefire agreement—which is intended to end the war—would start on the 16th day of the implementation of the deal.
Last year, a one-week truce was broken between both warring parties after Israel accused Hamas of violating the agreements.
Add a comment
