Blinken urges Israel and Hamas to move ahead with a cease-fire deal and says “the time is now”
By MATTHEW LEE and SAM MEDNICK
Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with Israeli leaders in his push for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, saying that “the time is now” for an agreement that would free hostages and bring a pause in the nearly seven months of war. He has said that Hamas would bear the blame for any failure to get a deal off the ground. Blinken is on his seventh visit to the region since the war erupted, seeking to secure what’s been an elusive deal between Israel and Hamas that could avert an Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering.
