Blinken heads back to Mideast to push hostage-ceasefire deal, starting with visits to Egypt and Israel

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading back to the Middle East to push a ceasefire and hostage deal plan, but Israeli political upheaval and silence from Hamas raise questions on whether he can succeed.

The top US diplomat, paying his eighth visit to the region since war broke out, is set to start the trip in Egypt and head later today to Israel.

Blinken is scheduled to hold closed-door talks first in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a key US partner in peace efforts, and later in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Blinken planned the visit to push forward a proposal announced on May 31 by US President Joe Biden, who has stepped up efforts to end a war that has taken a mounting toll on civilians and alienated parts of his base ahead of November elections.

But Hamas, which opened the war with a massive October 7 attack on Israel that triggered a relentless retaliatory campaign, has not formally responded.

And while Biden has described his plan as coming from Israel, the resignation yesterday of Benny Gantz from Netanyahu’s war cabinet throws a new wild card on US diplomatic efforts.

Gantz, a former general who leads in polls to replace Netanyahu if new elections are called, protested that the prime minister had not made the hard decisions to enable “real victory,” including by thinking out a post-war plan for Gaza.

Gantz has cast himself as a smoother partner for the United States than Netanyahu, a veteran of political squabbles with Israel’s vital ally. Biden in recent weeks suspended a shipment of weapons to Israel and accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war to stay in power, an assertion on which he backtracked.