Blinken set to visit Middle East next week to promote ceasefire plan

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to several Middle Eastern countries early next week to push the ceasefire proposal that would pause and possibly end the Israel–Hamas war.

He will travel to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Qatar from next Monday through Wednesday and will meet with regional leaders about the efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to the proposal, the State Department announced on Friday. Egypt and Qatar have acted as mediators, along with the United States, between Israel and Hamas over the course of the war.

The U.S. and several international leaders have urged Hamas to accept the Israeli proposal on the table, which “is nearly identical to the one Hamas endorsed last month,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement announcing the secretary’s trip to the Middle East.

If the reported proposal is agreed upon, the first of three phases would be a six-week ceasefire, which would include the return of women, children, and other vulnerable hostages Hamas is holding; the release of likely hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel; the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas of Gaza; and the surging of humanitarian aid into the strip. The second phase, which would be finalized during the first phase, would include the release of all living hostages in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the strip.

The international community has pushed for a ceasefire deal for several months, but both sides have not capitulated on some of their most strongly held conditions for an agreement.

Israel wants to maintain the freedom to conduct kinetic military action against Hamas, in effect keeping its ability to eliminate the terrorist group if a deal is agreed upon before then, while Hamas’s key sticking point has been that it wants an agreement that would completely end the war and allow the group to survive.

Blinken will also attend a conference on the humanitarian response to Gaza, which will be co-hosted by Jordan, Egypt, and the United Nations.

There have also been recent concerns that the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, a more sophisticated terrorist group than Hamas that is based in Lebanon, could devolve despite international efforts since Oct. 7 to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas from expanding into a regional conflict.

“Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week. “We are prepared for very intense action in the north. One way or another, we will restore security to the north.”

Similarly, Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Herzi Halevi said this week that Israel is “approaching the point where a decision will have to be made, and the IDF is prepared and very ready for this decision.”

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The State Department has argued an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal would likely lead to a decrease in tension between Hezbollah and Israel.

The deal “would unlock the possibility of achieving calm along Israel’s northern border — so both displaced Israeli and Lebanese families can return to their homes — and set the conditions for further integration between Israel and its Arab neighbors, strengthening Israel’s long-term security and improving stability across the region,” Miller said in his statement.