TEL AVIV, Israel – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that now is the time to reach a ceasefire agreement for Gaza that would release hostages held by Hamas and ease the suffering of Palestinians after more than a decade of devastating fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Blinken’s ninth urgent mission to the Middle East

Blinken’s ninth urgent mission to the Middle East since the conflict began came days after mediators, including the United States, expressed renewed optimism that a deal was near. But Hamas has expressed deep dissatisfaction with the latest proposal and Israel has said there are points on which it is not prepared to compromise.

The trip came days before new talks expected in Egypt this week, amid fears that the conflict could escalate into a deeper regional war following the targeted killings of two senior militants in Lebanon and Iran, attributed to Israel.

“This is a critical moment, probably the best, perhaps the last opportunity to bring the hostages home, to achieve a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to lasting peace and security,” Blinken said at the opening of talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.

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“It is also time to make sure that no one takes steps that could derail this process,” he said, in a veiled reference to Iran. “And that is why we are working to make sure that there is no escalation, that there are no provocations, that there are no actions that in any way dissuade us from following through on this agreement or that the conflict escalates to other places and with greater intensity.”

Herzog thanked Blinken for the Biden administration’s support of Israel and lamented a series of attacks on Israelis in the past 24 hours.

“This is how we live today,” Herzog said. “We are surrounded by terrorism from all four corners of the earth and we are fighting back as a resilient and strong nation.”

The mediators will meet again in Cairo this week to try to reach a ceasefire. Blinken will travel to Egypt on Tuesday after completing his stay in Israel to hold talks in the Mediterranean city of El Alamein.

Blinken met with Netanyahu

On Monday, he met one-on-one for two and a half hours with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and later in the day with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The war began on October 7, when Hamas-led militants entered Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Around 110 of these are believed to still be in Gaza, although Israeli authorities say a third of the dead have died. In November, more than 100 hostages were released during a week-long ceasefire.

According to local health authorities, Israel’s counterattack in the Gaza Strip killed more than 40,000 Palestinians and devastated large parts of the area.

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Late last week, the three countries mediating the proposed ceasefire – Egypt, Qatar and the United States – reported progress on an agreement under which Israel would halt most military operations in Gaza and release a number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of hostages.

Shortly before Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting that there were areas where Israel could be flexible and unspecified areas where it would not.

“We are in negotiations, not in a give-and-give scenario,” he said.

The proposal calls for a three-stage process in which Hamas will release all hostages kidnapped during the October 7 attack. In return, Israel will withdraw its troops from Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas accuses Israel of making new demands, namely maintaining a military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border to prevent arms smuggling and along a line cutting through the area to search Palestinians returning to their homes in the north. Israel said these were not new demands but clarifications of an earlier proposal.

Officials said the US has put forward proposals to bridge any remaining differences between Israel’s and Hamas’s positions. Formal responses to the US draft are expected this week and could lead to a ceasefire declaration if talks do not stall, as has happened with several previous efforts.

Late Sunday, Hamas said in a statement that Netanyahu had continued to put obstacles in the way of an agreement by demanding new conditions, accusing him of seeking to prolong the war and calling the mediators’ latest offer a capitulation to Israel.

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“The new proposal meets Netanyahu’s conditions,” Hamas said.

Blinken said on Monday that both sides should use this opportunity to reach an agreement.

“It’s time for everyone to say ‘yes’ and not look for excuses to say ‘no,'” he said.

An Israeli delegation held talks with Egyptian officials as part of the ceasefire efforts, an Egyptian official said on Monday.

The hours-long meeting on Sunday focused on the Philadelphia Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, but no breakthrough was achieved, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations.

The official said Israel continues to insist on maintaining control over the border and the east-west route that cuts through Gaza. He said the delegation offered nothing new at their meeting.