Blinken pans Hamas response to Israeli offer, saying some proposed changes ‘not workable’
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticizes Hamas’s response to Israel’s hostage deal proposal, saying it included some changes that are not workable.
“Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table… Some of the changes are workable, some are not,” Blinken says in a press conference with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.
“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.”
“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.
“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.”
“But in the days ahead, we are going to continue to push on an urgent basis with our partners, with Qatar with Egypt, to try to close this deal. Because we know it’s in the interests of Israelis, Palestinians, the region, indeed, the entire world,” he adds.
“At some point in a negotiation — and this has gone back and forth for a long time — you get to a point where if one side continues to change its demands, including making demands and insisting on changes on things that they had already accepted, you have to question whether they’re proceeding in good faith or not,” Blinken says.
“We’re determined to try to bridge the gaps, and I believe those gaps are bridgeable. That doesn’t mean they will be bridged,” he adds.
“It’s time for the haggling to stop and a ceasefire to start.”
“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.