US says Hamas is to blame for ceasefire delay – but is it Hamas or Israel?
Al Jazeera
Biden administration insists Israel is on board, but the latter’s evasiveness highlights the contradictions of any deal.
The United States’ position on the Gaza ceasefire is that Hamas is causing all the problems and that Israel has not just accepted the deal – it produced it.
In the weeks since US President Joe Biden announced his proposal for a ceasefire, his administration has repeated this point.
The US even took the notion to the United Nations, where the Security Council backed a text that said Israel accepted the deal.
But Hamas, despite the US trying to make it the intransigent party, has made positive statements about the proposal. In contrast, the side that refuses to say whether it supports the proposal is Israel.
The leadership of Hamas and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have taken different approaches to the deal, which is also being negotiated by Egypt and Qatar.
