With the winds of war blowing in the background in the north , the U.S. continues its efforts to revive negotiations for a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas - a deal it hopes will also prevent an all-out war with Hezbollah. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken took off overnight between Monday and Tuesday for Egypt, and a regional official told the Wall Street Journal that the visit is aimed at finding a solution that will calm Israel's concerns regarding arms smuggling in the Philadelphia area .
The issue of the Israeli presence in the corridor between the southern Gaza Strip and the Sinai is now one of the main points of contention that prevents reaching a deal for the release of hostages and a cease-fire with Hamas, since not only does the terrorist organization strongly oppose an Israeli presence in the corridor, but Egypt does as well. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu firmly insists on controlling the axis, claiming that it is of critical security importance, although he agreed to reduce the forces operating there as part of an agreement.
According to the report in the Wall Street Journal, Blinken intends to hold "candid" talks with his colleagues in Cairo on the Philadelphi issue. The newspaper reports without explicitly explaining the connection of this to the issue, that last week the U.S. State Department announced that it would provide Egypt with its full allocation of military financing assistance, a total of $1.3 billion, overriding longtime human-rights concerns by the government of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to give Egypt "everything it has been promised."
Despite the hopes of the Americans to reach a deal that they believe could lead to an end to the war – almost a year after the October 7 massacre and less than two months before the U.S. presidential elections – they are delaying for the time being the "mediation proposal" they have been talking about in recent days, fearing that if it is rejected the contacts will blow up.
“I would not say a deal is imminent,” a senior administration official said, according to the WSJ. An Israeli official echoed the sentiment in Washington: “I am optimistic it will happen but not any time soon."
The very fact that Blinken will only come to Cairo, and not to Jerusalem, probably indicates that he also understands that the current visit - his 10th to the Middle East since the outbreak of the war - will probably not lead to the long-awaited breakthrough. Israeli officials quoted in the report said that they are not disappointed that Blinken will not come to Israel, because Blinken continues to maintain close contact with senior officials in Jerusalem and because the contacts continue among the mid-level negotiators. In addition, President Joe Biden's special Mideast envoy, Amos Hochstein, is already in Israel, and is focusing on the issue of the northern border.
Blinken, according to the Wall Street Journal, is expected after the visit to Cairo to pay a quick visit to Paris - where he will "exchange impressions" with his French colleagues, who, according to the report, "deal directly with Hezbollah." According to experts quoted in the newspaper, by Blinken avoiding a visit to Israel, he also "reduces" the chance of a confrontation with Netanyahu, in the event that the secretary of sate says something publicly about the state of the talks and the prime minister's unwillingness to reach a deal.
Either way, according to the report, the Americans are now renewing their efforts "urgently," in the shadow of the fear of escalation in the northern sector. The Biden administration constantly claims that only a diplomatic solution can achieve a solution in which the residents of the north will return to their homes safely, a goal defined on Monday night by the Security cabinet as an official goal of the war.
Hochstein conveyed this message to Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in the meetings he held with them on Monday. He warned that a broad conflict in the north would not only not lead to the long-awaited solution of the return of the residents to their homes, but could also ignite a broader and much longer regional conflict. In Israel, on the other hand, they clarified that the possibility of a settlement is fleeting, as long as Hezbollah insists on tying the northern front to a cease-fire in Gaza.