Hamas backtracked on agreeing to a hostage deal when public pressure on Israel increased, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, The New York Times reported Saturday.
An additional impediment to a deal was that Hamas wanted the conflict to spread to additional fronts, with Israel being attacked by Hezbollah and Iran, he said in an interview with the Times.
Achieving a hostage deal was the quickest way to end the war, he added.
The absence of world pressure on Hamas to surrender and release the hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 massacre has been “astounding,” Blinken said.
“Why there hasn’t been a unanimous chorus around the world for Hamas to put down its weapons, to give up the hostages, to surrender – I don’t know what the answer is to that,” he said
“Israel, on various occasions, has offered safe passage to Hamas’s leadership and fighters out of Gaza,” he added. “Where is the world?”
Asked whether he thought Israel had abided by laws of war in Gaza, Blinken cited the humanitarian aid provided by Israel to Gaza.
“We’ve found periods of time where, no, we didn’t think they [Israel] were doing enough... There’s a big difference between intent and result, whether it’s under the law or under any one standard,” he said.
“The results that we were seeing were grossly insufficient, that is, the result of getting people the assistance they need. I think that making sure that people are protected has been insufficient. There’s a very different question about what was the intent.”
US aid to Israel
Asked why the US administration continued to transfer weapons to Israel, Blinken reiterated the United States’ commitment to its defense.
Asked whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had listened to the Biden administration, especially regarding the May operation in Rafah in southern Gaza, he said: “What Israel wound up doing in Rafah was very different from what they were planning to do before we engaged with them.”
Blinken refuted reports that Netanyahu had barred a hostage deal from being achieved in July.
“What we’ve seen time and again is Hamas not concluding a deal that it should have concluded,” he said. “There have been times when actions that Israel has taken have, yes, made it more difficult. But there’s been a rationale for those actions, even if they’ve sometimes made getting to a conclusion more difficult.”