The Albany Gazette - Blinken in Qatar on Mideast tour to push for Gaza truce

The Palestinian militant group, whose October 7 attack triggered the war, said it was "keen to reach a ceasefire" agreement but protested "new conditions" from Israel in the latest US proposal, which Blinken said Israel had accepted.

The US secretary of state, on his ninth regional visit since the Israel-Hamas war began more than 10 months ago, flew from Israel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Sisi told Blinken that "the time has come to end the ongoing war", warning of the consequences of "the conflict expanding regionally", according to an official statement.

Blinken then travelled to Doha to meet with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce, which diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Medics and civil defence rescuers in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip meanwhile said Israeli bombardment on Tuesday killed more than two dozen people, and Israel announced it had recovered the bodies of six hostages.

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that would stop the fighting, free Israeli hostages and allow vital humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

One of the main sticking points has been Hamas's long-standing demand for a "complete" withdrawal of Israeli troops from all parts of Gaza, which Israel has rejected.

Israeli media quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying Israel would insist on maintaining control of a strategic strip on the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi corridor.

A US official travelling with Blinken, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said that "maximalist statements like this are not constructive to getting a ceasefire deal across the finish line".

- 'Crucial passage' -

Mediators met last week with Israeli negotiators in Doha, and more truce talks are expected in Egypt this week.

Fears of a regional escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond after an attack last month, blamed on Israel, killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, shortly after an Israeli strike on Beirut killed a top Hezbollah commander.

The powerful Lebanese group on Tuesday claimed a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions.

Lebanon's health ministry said two people were killed in Israeli strikes in the country's south, in the latest of the cross-border exchanges which have raged almost daily since the Gaza war began.

Blinken said on Monday that there was "a real sense of urgency here, across the region", and called ongoing mediation efforts "probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire".

Hamas had called on the mediators to implement a framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Hamas said on Sunday that the current US proposal, which Washington had put forward after two days of meetings in Doha, "responds to Netanyahu's conditions".

And on Monday, in response to comments by Biden that it was "backing away" from a deal, the Iran-backed group said the "misleading claims... do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a ceasefire".

Hamas officials as well as some analysts and critics in Israel have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political gain.

"This has made it nearly impossible for aid workers to move along this key route", a statement said, preventing "critical supplies and services, such as water trucking" from reaching those in need.

- Israel recovers dead hostages -

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,173 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Most of the dead are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.

Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 105 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israeli army operations in Gaza have continued throughout the truce talks.

An Israeli strike on Tuesday hit a school in Gaza City where the civil defence agency said at least 12 Palestinians were killed and the military said a Hamas command centre was based.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in the facility, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

AFP photos showed the Mustafa Hafiz school partly reduced to rubble, with Palestinians fleeing.

Elsewhere in Gaza, Bassal and medical sources reported at least 17 killed in four separate strikes.

The Israeli military said forces had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in the southern Gaza district of Khan Yunis.

Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called on the government to "do everything in its power to finalise the deal currently on the table" and rescue the remaining captives.

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(J.Torres--TAG)