Blinken in Egypt seeking progress towards Gaza ceasefire deal

Alamein (Reuters): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Egypt on Tuesday, pushing for areas of possible progress on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal in talks planned for later this week, with major areas of dispute left unresolved.

Blinken arrived in Egypt from Tel Aviv, where he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a U.S. "bridging proposal" aimed at narrowing the gaps between the two sides after talks last week paused without a breakthrough. He urged Hamas to also accept the proposal as the basis for more talks.

The Palestinian militant group has not definitively rejected the proposal, but has said it backtracks from areas previously agreed and has accused Israel and its U.S. ally of spinning out the negotiations process in bad faith.

In Egypt, Blinken was meeting President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, whose country has been helping mediate the on-off Gaza talks for months along with the U.S. and Qatar.

At stake is the fate of tiny, crowded Gaza, where Israel's military campaign has killed more than 40,000 people since October according to Palestinian health authorities, and of the remaining hostages being held there.

The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

On Tuesday, Israel's military said it had recovered the bodies of six hostages from southern Gaza, adding that 109 hostages remained in the Palestinian territory, of whom Israel around a third are believed already to be dead.