Axios - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is telling the U.S. he absolutely wants a ceasefire deal in Gaza — while Israeli officials say he's refusing to give negotiators enough space to actually make a deal, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. Some Israeli officials told Axios that Netanyahu's hard lines are making a deal much harder to reach — prolonging the war in Gaza even as he tells American officials he wants to help end it.
Netanyahu endorsed the U.S.' latest ceasefire proposal — which incorporated several of his updated demands — knowing Hamas would reject it, senior Israeli officials tell Axios. Despite optimism from Washington during the most recent round of negotiations, the Egyptian and Qatari mediators providing updates to Hamas didn't believe any real progress was being made.
Netanyahu
told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he intends to send the heads
of the Israeli negotiating team to a follow-up summit in Cairo later
this week, a Netanyahu aide told Axios. "What matters is not whether Netanyahu is sending the negotiators, but
if he gives them a wide enough mandate to get a deal," an Israeli
official said. MORE
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