Ahead of visit to Israel, US's Blinken presses Hamas to accept new proposal for Gaza cease-fire

JERUSALEM - The United States stepped up pressure for a cease-fire deal in Gaza on Monday as the secretary of state said a new proposal had been put to Hamas, whose officials were in Cairo talking to Egyptian mediators. Israeli airstrikes killed 26 people in the Gaza's southern town of Rafah, according to hospital records.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, ahead of a new visit to Israel this week, pressured Hamas to accept the latest proposal, calling it ''extraordinarily generous'' on the part of Israel.

Terms of the proposal were not made public, and it was not known if anything had changed on the main roadblock that U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators have repeatedly crashed against: the question of the extent of a cease-fire. During months of talks, meditators have often signaled major progress only to come out empty-handed.

https://www.startribune.com/israeli-officials-concerned-about-possible-icc-arrest-warrants-as-pressure-mounts-over-war-in-gaza/600362370/