Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same. Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, was scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle in 1942, to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace. Afterwards, he will head to a meeting with Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in Doha, the scene of ceasefire talks last week.
Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month Gaza conflict. Washington put forward the latest proposal last week after the talks in Doha. Blinken said Monday he had "a very constructive meeting" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who "confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal".
Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on the mediators to implement the framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations. The movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal "responds to Netanyahu's conditions" and leaves him "fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators". Earlier on Monday, the US secretary of state had said: "This is a decisive moment -- probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the h.