Top US diplomat Antony Blinken is all set to visit Israel on Sunday, August 18, to push for Gaza ceasefire talks.
According to Reuters, Blinken will arrive in Israel as the US intensifies diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza after ten months of deadly war.
The US state secretary, in his tenth visit to Israel since the beginning of war in October 2023, will meet senior officials and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He will put forward the proposal that mediating countries, US, Egypt, and Qatar, believe will facilitate a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Moreover, a senior Biden administration official told reporters on Friday, “What we've done is taken the gaps that remain and have bridged those in a way that we think basically is a deal that is now ready to close and implement and move forward.”
The US President Joe Biden also said that he is ‘optimistic about the ceasefire deal, seeing that the deal is ‘very much closer.’
Meanwhile, the Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP, “To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion. We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats.”
However, the Israel-Hamas negotiations, paused on Friday, will resume next week, with senior officials optimistic about finalising the agreement in Cairo.
