I think there's a lot of wishful thinking going on, and I think the wishful thinking is because the stakes are now so high, because there is a potential for this conflict to escalate beyond its borders,
Completing a successful polio vaccination campaign is quite challenging. The safe transport of vaccines in cold temperatures and the availability of fuel and communication networks are all essential for the success of the WHO/UNICEF-led campaign to vaccinate 650,000 children below the age of 8 years,
It’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same,” and then with the help of mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States, to “come together and complete the process,
A cease-fire, or at the very least a humanitarian pause, is urgently needed to give this polio vaccination campaign a fighting chance,
We’re never giving up,
But there is, I think, a real sense of urgency here across the region on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible,
In a very constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu today, he confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal. He supports it. It's now incumbent on Hamas to do the same,
The single quickest, best, most effective way to relieve the terrible suffering of the Palestinians that was instigated by Hamas's attack on October 7 and the war that ensued is to complete this agreement."
What I would say to Hamas and to its leadership is, if it genuinely cares about the Palestinian people that it purports to somehow represent, then it will say 'yes' to this agreement, and it will work on clear understandings about how to implement it,
We've seen public statements before where they don't fully reflect where Hamas is,
This is the way we are living these days,
The new proposal responds to Netanyahu’s conditions,
This is a decisive moment, probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,
We know that the mutilated body is not that of an innocent bystander but the one who carried the bomb,
They were engineers, teachers, medical staff. They were humanitarian workers,
Blinken acts as if he was a minister in Netanyahu's government,
It is now our primary task in defensive operations overall to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions. This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region.”
We’re working to make sure that there is no escalation, that there are no provocations, that there are no actions that in any way could move us away from getting this deal over the line, or, for that matter, escalating the conflict to other places, and to greater intensity,
I will not speak for him, but I will tell you that these conversations are ongoing and we are not giving up, and we are going to continue to work very hard on this
It is time for it to get done. It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process,