US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hopes Hamas will accept an “extremely generous” offer from Israel to end the offensive in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages.
He said this on Monday on the sidelines of a special meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.
‘Hamas has an extremely generous offer in front of it from Israel. They have to make a decision and they have to make it quickly (…), and I hope they make the right decision,” Blinken said. The American also reiterated that his country opposes an Israeli offensive on the overpopulated city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. “We have not yet seen any plans that would convince us that citizens could actually be protected,” Blinken said.
He also stated that diplomacy prevented the war between Israel and Hamas from spreading beyond the Gaza Strip. “We came very close to an escalation or an extension of the conflict, and I think through very focused and determined efforts we were able to prevent that,” it said. Regarding the normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Blinken argued that the security pact between his country and Riyadh for such normalization is about to be concluded.
The US Secretary of State is currently in Riyadh on his seventh visit to the Middle East since Hamas’s massive attack on Israel on October 7 and the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Blinken’s intention is, among other things, to broker a ceasefire in Gaza. He is also in favor of a regional agreement that also involves Israel.
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