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.<br /><br />“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.<br /><br />“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.”<br /><br />“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.<br /><br />“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.”<br /><br />“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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Hamdan, speaking to the pan-Arab Al-Araby TV, also said Blinken was “part of the problem, not the solution” in the Gaza conflict.<br /><br />#hamas #israel #palestine #blinken
