U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized Hamas’s response to Israel’s hostage deal proposal, saying it included some changes that are not workable.

“Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table… Some of the changes are workable, some are not,” Blinken said in a press conference with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.

“A deal was on the table that was virtually identical to the proposal that Hamas made on May 6 — a deal that the entire world is behind, a deal Israel has accepted.”

“Hamas could have answered with a single word. ‘Yes.’ Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that it had previously taken and accepted,” Blinken says.

“As a result, the war — [which] Hamas started on October 7 with its barbaric attack on Israel and on Israeli civilians — will go on. More people will suffer, more Palestinians will suffer, more Israelis will suffer.”

“It may be that Hamas continues to say ‘no.’ [Then] I think it will be clear to everyone around the world, that it’s on them and that they will have made a choice to continue a war that they started,” Blinken says.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan denies that the movement had put forward new ideas for the U.S.-backed proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.

Hamdan, speaking to the pan-Arab Al-Araby TV, also said Blinken was “part of the problem, not the solution” in the Gaza conflict.

#hamas #israel #palestine #blinken