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Blinken warns that Hamas demands for a deal mean the war will ‘continue’

Archive - United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken


Archive – United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken – Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa Pool/dp – Archive

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June 12. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, regretted this Wednesday that the new demands of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) for a ceasefire mean that the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip “will continue.”

The Palestinian militia responded on Tuesday to the ceasefire proposal presented by US President Joe Biden at the end of May, although it has suggested certain changes to the agreement that suggest that, once again, there will be no understanding between the parties.

“We will continue to press urgently to try to close this agreement,” Blinken said at a press conference from the capital of Qatar, Doha, where he insisted that the difference in positions between Hamas and Israel, according to the American news network .

“I believe that these gaps can be bridged, which does not mean that they will be bridged,” Blinken clarified, who despite everything seems to be less than optimistic about the possibility that this ceasefire proposal will end up being applied.

Thus, the top representative of American diplomacy has questioned whether Hamas is “acting in good faith” by proposing a series of new demands that “go beyond the positions they had adopted at the beginning” of the negotiations.

“You get to a point where if one party continues to change their demands, even making new demands and insisting on changing things they had previously agreed to, you have to ask yourself whether they are acting in good faith or not,” he said. .

Finally, Blinken has stressed the need to end the “haggling” between the parties and “begin a ceasefire”; At the same time, he has slipped that Washington will present new proposals in the coming days in order to ensure the governance of the Gaza Strip once the war ends.

The plan presented by Biden is divided into three phases, in which the first proposes the exchange of hostages for prisoners and a short-term ceasefire; The second provides for a “permanent cessation of hostilities” and the complete withdrawal of Israeli military forces from Gaza; while the last phase includes a multi-year Gaza reconstruction plan.

At the beginning of October, Hamas launched a series of attacks against Israeli territory, leaving a death toll of almost 1,200 people and 240 hostages. The Israeli Army then launched a bloody military operation in the Gaza Strip focused on the structures of the Palestinian militia but which has already claimed the lives of more than 37,000 people.

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