In his final TV interview in office, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal is based on President Joe Biden’s proposal from May of last year.
Speaking just hours before sources confirmed to CNN that both Israel and Hamas have agreed to the deal, Blinken explained: “Two things: it’ll be on the basis of the plan President Biden put forward back in May and that we rallied the entire world behind. Ever since then, we’ve been working to negotiate the details, the implementation, it’s been delayed and derailed by different events, but we’re finally at the point where this gets over the line.”
Blinken also offered an insight into initial next steps: “First, the firing stops. Hamas, Israel stop firing. Israel pulls back its forces. Hostages begin to be released. Prisoners come out of Israeli jails and go back. And we surge humanitarian assistance to people who so desperately need it,” he said.
The outgoing Secretary of State said that “all of that happens during a six-week period” but that during that window, “we have to negotiate the understandings to get to a permanent ceasefire.”
He continued, “So that Israel pulls all of its forces out of Gaza, Hamas doesn’t come back in, and there’s the necessary governance, security reconstruction arrangements so that Gaza can move forward.”
Blinken said that how a permanent ceasefire would work had been worked on “for the last six or seven months, intensely but quietly, with Arab partners, with others.” He added that he believed the parties had reached “some basic understandings.”
He continued, “The ceasefire itself hopefully will concentrate minds and get people to agree on what’s necessary to get that day after, post-conflict plan in place.”
Key quotes from Secretary Blinken:
On how the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas might unfold:
“It will be on the basis of the plan that President Biden put forward back in May and that we rallied the entire world behind ever since then.”
“First, the firing stops. Hamas, Israel stop firing. Israel pulls back its forces. Hostages begin to be released. Prisoners come out of Israeli jails and go back, and we serve humanitarian assistance to people who so desperately need it. All of that happens during a six-week period. But also during that 6 weeks we have to negotiate the understandings to get to a permanent ceasefire so that Israel pulls all of its forces out of Gaza. Hamas doesn’t come back in, and there’s the necessary governance, security, reconstruction arrangements so that Gaza can move forward.”
On whether a permanent ceasefire plan has been sorted:
“That’s not sorted. We’ve worked on it intensely for the last 6 or 7 months. Intensely but quietly with our partners with others, I think there’s some basic understandings that that we’ve reached, but the ceasefire itself hopefully would concentrate minds and get people to agree on uh what’s necessary to get that day after post-conflict plan in place.”
On whether he thinks the incoming Trump administration will continue to engage in talks:
“Of course it’ll it will be up to them, but not only up to them, it’ll be up to the parties and all the people concerned. I think there’s a strong impetus among all involved not only to have this ceasefire…But to make sure that it’s permanent, Israel does not have an incentive to remain bogged down in Gaza with an insurgency, bleeding it, continuing to put pressure on its economy on its reserves. The Palestinian people certainly don’t need a continuation of Gaza. Countries throughout the region don’t want that, so I think there’s going to be… strong pressure from all sides to make sure that it becomes permanent. And the best way to do that, I think, is through the work that we’ve done, but it’ll be up to the administration to decide whether to try to carry that forward, whether it has some other way of doing this.”
On why it took so long for this ceasefire deal to come together:
“There have been two dynamics that have really held things back more than anything else. Hamas was hoping, hoping, hoping that the cavalry would come to the rescue, that it would get a wider war with Lebanon and Hezbollah, with Iran, and the actions that we took along with Israel made it clear that the cavalry was not coming to the rescue. It couldn’t count on that. Second, it hoped that by holding back pressure would just mount on Israel to give in and to accede to the terms of the ceasefire hostage deal on Hamas’s terms, and there again that hasn’t happened. So I think as we look at it, as we’ve seen it, yes, have there been moments when things have happened on one side or the other that have made it harder to get it over the line? Yes, but fundamentally, it’s been Hamas, but now we’re at the point where Hopefully Hamas sees that the only way forward.”
On his reaction to State Department employees resigning over concerns that American laws governing the use of military aid have not been followed in Israel:
“I can’t speak to individual instances. I can say, obviously we’ve had concerns. More the concerns about the way Israel has conducted itself, understanding first of all that this is a unique environment, one we haven’t really seen before, one where you have a population that’s trapped inside of Gaza and virtually every other situation in the world, people are able to get out of harm’s way. They become refugees in a neighboring country. That’s not a good thing, but it’s better than being caught in the middle of this kind of maelstrom. Second, uniquely, you have an enemy that intentionally embeds itself. Within the civilian population in and under apartments in and under schools, mosques, hospitals, that does not in any way absolve Israel the responsibility…It makes it much more challenging. So we look at this very, very carefully. Israel looks at this very, very carefully. There are hundreds of cases that are within the Israeli system as we speak. Those cases, I believe and trust will move forward to assess exactly what you’ve asked whether individuals have committed violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes, you name it. That’s the nature of the of the system. We need to see it obviously come to fruition just as we look intensely at any things that are brought to our attention, but the challenge of doing that, not only in real time but doing it in this unique environment, are real. That doesn’t mean we don’t do it we do, but it takes time to get to the facts. The second thing I want to say is this. I more than respect, I deeply value the fact that we have people in this department and in our system who have different views and speak up, speak out. We have something called a dissent channel in the State Department where people object to a policy we’re pursuing. They can send me a note, a memo, a detailed brief and it and I see it. I read it, I respond to it. I’ve gotten, I don’t know, a couple of dozen when it comes to Gaza as well as other issues, that is a cherished tradition in this department and I wanted to make sure that people feel that they can do that and it’s also affected our thinking in many cases, including our actions.”
