WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that a Gaza ceasefire deal was still possible but he charged that an International Criminal Court arrest bid for Israeli leaders was setting back efforts.
Blinken was opening two days of testimony before Congress that were immediately disrupted by protesters, with two demonstrators shouting that the top US diplomat was a “war criminal” over support to Israel as they were escorted out by police.
Blinken credited Qatar and Egypt with assisting the “extensive effort” to secure a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in return for the release of hostages.
Israel urges ‘civilised nations’ to spurn any ICC warrants against its leaders
But CIA Director Bill Burns, the US pointman in the talks, left the region empty-handed some 10 days ago.
“I think we’ve come very, very close on a couple of occasions,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“We remain at it every single day. I think that there’s still a possibility,” Blinken said.
“But it’s challenged by a number of events and I have to say, yes the extremely wrongheaded decision by the ICC prosecutor yesterday – the shameful equivalence implied between Hamas and the leadership of Israel – I think that only complicates the prospects for getting such an agreement,” Blinken said.
Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, on Monday said he had applied for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Hamas chiefs.
President Joe Biden called the move “outrageous” for putting together Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, and Israel, which has carried out a relentless military campaign in Gaza since then.
The Biden administration has stopped short of threatening sanctions against the ICC, a step taken by previous president Donald Trump against a previous prosecutor of the court.
Blinken said repeatedly in response to questions only that the Biden administration was looking at an “appropriate response” to the ICC.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Hamas also took 252 hostages, 124 of whom remain in Gaza including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 35,647 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
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