Israel didn’t condition Gazan return to north on progress toward hostage deal — US official
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Israel did not link allowing the return of evacuated Palestinians to northern Gaza to progress toward a hostage deal during talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US State Department spokesman Matt Miller says.
Ahead of Blinken’s arrival, the Axios news site reported that Israeli officials planned to tell Blinken that they would not allow Gazans to return to their homes in the northern Strip — a key US demand — absent major progress in securing the release of the hostages.
Miller says he read the report ahead of Blinken’s trip, and that Israeli officials did not make such a condition in their meetings. They did, however, say that Gazans should only be allowed to return to their homes when active fighting there subsides, the spokesman notes.
Miller also highlights that Israel agreed to allow a team of UN workers into Gaza in order to carry out an assessment regarding the conditions necessary for allowing Palestinians to return to the northern Strip. He says many of the homes have been booby-trapped by Hamas fighters and that those IEDs need to be removed before Palestinians can return.
Blinken announced the UN mission while he was in Israel, saying the US expected it to move forward immediately. No such development has taken place yet, though.