Israel recovers six more hostage bodies, Blinken says Netanyahu agreed to ‘bridging agreement’

Washington: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted a ceasefire proposal to halt the war in Gaza and the next step was for “Hamas to say yes”, putting the onus on the group to end the 10-month conflict even as violence continues.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli military said it had recovered the bodies of six hostages from southern Gaza without saying how or when they died. It identified the hostages as Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, and Haim Perry. Hamas is believed to be still holding about 110 hostages, a third of which are estimated by Israeli authorities to be dead.

Blinken, on his ninth trip to the region since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, called the proposed accord “a bridging agreement” and acknowledged that not everything was spelt out in detail. But it builds on a proposal that US President Joe Biden put forward in late May that both sides had baulked at. Earlier in the day, Blinken had called it “the best, maybe the last opportunity” to free the hostages taken in the Hamas attack.

Families of hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 last year demand a ceasefire deal. They were protesting outside a press event by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv.Credit: Getty Images

Blinken said the US would never give up, but that each passing day increased the risk of harm to the hostages and raised the chance the talks would be derailed. Iran and Hezbollah have vowed retribution for recent assassinations they say were the work of Israel, and Blinken’s trip was seen in part as an effort to deter such a strike.

He said he would next travel to Egypt and Qatar to understand what their leaders were hearing from Hamas on the next steps.

Blinken emphasised the need for an “enduring ceasefire”, a phrase that fell between Netanyahu’s past insistence on resuming the war until Hamas is destroyed and the demand of Hamas for a permanent end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Blinken speaks to the media in Tel Aviv.Credit: AP

In a statement, Netanyahu described his meeting with Blinken as “good and important” and voiced appreciation for what he described as US recognition, amid the truce efforts, of vital Israeli security needs.

But it’s not clear the two sides are ready to do a deal, regardless of what the US says. Earlier, Netanyahu had accused Hamas – backed by Iran and designated a terrorist organisation by Australia, the US and European Union – of being “completely obstinate”. International pressure should, he said, be directed at the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be in hiding in Gaza.

Hamas released a statement detailing what it said were Israel’s new demands that would prevent a deal.

“We hold Netanyahu fully responsible,” the group said.

Underscoring Israel’s top priority in a deal, Netanyahu said the maximum number of living hostages held by Hamas should go free as part of a proposed first-phase ceasefire. Dozens of people holding up photos of the hostages spent hours demonstrating outside Blinken’s hotel in Tel Aviv, using signs and chants to urge him to pressure Netanyahu to accept a deal.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group, also claimed responsibility for what they said was a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv late on Sunday. Israeli police said the assailant was killed and another person was injured.

The two groups threatened in a statement to carry out more such attacks “as long as the occupation’s massacres, displacement of civilians, and the continuation of the assassination policy continue”.

The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas fighters swarmed into southern Israel, killing about 1200 people and taking roughly 240 hostage. Israel responded with an air and ground assault that’s killed more than 40,000 people, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza.

Bloomberg