US hoping for Gaza ceasefire agreement in next 2 weeks: Blinken

The Biden administration says it is still hoping to secure a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas in its final two weeks in the White House, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday.

Blinken, on diplomatic travel in South Korea, said that the last couple of weeks have seen a “re-intensified engagement, including by Hamas,” but there is not yet agreement on final terms.

“What I can tell you is this: we very much want to bring this over the finish line in the next two weeks, the time that we have remaining. And we will work every minute of every day of those two weeks to try to get that to happen," he said.

President-elect Trump has warned Hamas of “hell to pay” if hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, are not released by his inauguration on Jan 20.

Hamas holds an estimated 100 people it kidnapped from southern Israel during its terrorist attack, although a majority of those people are believed dead. Among those not yet released are seven Americans. In late November, Hamas released a proof-of-life video of 21-year-old Israeli-American Edan Alexander.

Israel has subsequently laid waste to the Gaza Strip in its war against Hamas over the past 15 months, with tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed, and the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of war crimes.

The U.S. has pushed for a ceasefire as the best way to scale up humanitarian aid deliveries to Palestinians in the strip and pause fighting to provide relief to those under siege. But it has also continued supplying Israel with billions of dollars worth of weapons to prosecute its war.

In an interview with the New York Times published on Friday, Blinken said Hamas was the major obstacle to achieving a deal.

“What we’ve seen time and again is Hamas not concluding a deal that it should have concluded.”

Netanyahu has also been accused of shifting the terms of a potential deal and has faced intense pressure at home over his failure to secure the release of hostages.

Israeli officials are reportedly in Doha, Qatar for indirect talks on a deal, with an Israeli official telling the Times of Israel that a major obstacle remains for Hamas to provide the number and names of hostages to be released in a first round.

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