U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Hamas to swiftly accept an Israeli proposal for a truce in the Gaza war and the release of Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian terrorist group.

Hamas negotiators were expected to meet Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Monday to deliver a response to the phased truce proposal which Israel presented at the weekend.

“Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel,” Blinken said at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

“The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas. They have to decide and they have to decide quickly,” he said. “I’m hopeful that they will make the right decision.”

A source briefed on the talks said Israel’s proposal entailed a deal for the release of fewer than 40 of the roughly 130 hostages believed to be still held in Gaza in exchange for freeing Palestinians jailed in Israel.

A second phase of a truce would consist of a “period of sustained calm” – Israel’s compromise response to a Hamas demand for a permanent ceasefire.

A total of 253 hostages were seized in a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which about 1,200 Israelis were also killed, according to Israeli counts.

A French diplomatic source said there was a convergence on the number of hostages released in return for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, but that obstacles remained on the longer term nature of truce.

“We’re not far off from a deal, but that’s not the first time,” the source said.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who was also in Riyadh for the WEF meeting, also described the Israeli proposal as “generous.”

It included a 40-day pause in fighting and the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners as well as Israeli hostages, he told a WEF audience.

“I hope Hamas do take this deal and frankly, all the pressure in the world and all the eyes in the world should be on them today saying ‘take that deal,’” Cameron said.

Cameron is among several foreign ministers in Riyadh, including from the U.S., France, Jordan and Egypt, as part of a diplomatic push to bring an end to the Gaza war.

SAUDI TIES

Blinken reiterated that the U.S., Israel’s main diplomatic supporter and weapons supplier, could not back an Israeli ground assault on Rafah if there was no plan to ensure that civilians would not be harmed.

Blinken met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, where they discussed the urgent need to reduce tensions in the region, the U.S. Department of State said in a statement.

More than a million displaced Gaza residents are crammed into Rafah, the enclave’s southernmost city, having sought refuge there from Israeli bombardments. Israel says the last Hamas fighters are holed up there and it will open an offensive to root them out soon.

Blinken also said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had done “intense work together” over the past few months towards a normalization accord between the kingdom and Israel. That goal has been disrupted by the Gaza war.

“To move forward with normalization, two things will be required: calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” he said.

In return for normalization, Arab states are pushing for Israel to accept a pathway to Palestinian statehood on land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war – something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah also said on Monday that an accord between Washington and Riyadh over normalization was “very, very close.”

The post US, Britain Urge Hamas to Accept Israeli Truce Proposal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Columbia University’s president said on Monday that talks with anti-Israel protesters over the dismantling of an encampment on the Ivy League campus had failed and urged them to voluntarily disperse or face suspension from school.

President Nemat Minouche Shafik said days of talks between student organizers and academic leaders had failed to break a stalemate over the tent encampment set up to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.

Shafik in a statement said Columbia would not divest assets that support Israel’s military, a key demand of the protesters, but offered to invest in health and education in Gaza, and make Columbia’s direct investment holdings more transparent.

Protesters have vowed to keep their encampment on the Manhattan campus until Columbia meets three demands: divestment, transparency in Columbia’s finances and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined for their part in the protests.

The university sent protesters a letter on Monday morning, warning that students who did not vacate the encampment by 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT) and sign a form acknowledging their participation would face suspension and become ineligible to complete the semester in good standing.

Even students who signed the form and left the area on Monday would still go on “disciplinary probation” until June 2025 or their graduation, whichever came first, according to the letter, which a Columbia spokesperson confirmed was authentic.

“These repulsive scare tactics mean nothing compared to the deaths of over 34,000 Palestinians. We will not move until Columbia meets our demands or we are moved by force,” the Columbia Student Apartheid Divest coalition said in a joint statement on Monday.

A university spokesperson said administrators would have no further comment.

Shafik faced an outcry from many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York City police two weeks ago to dismantle the encampment, resulting in more than 100 arrests.

Efforts to remove the encampment, which students set up again within days of the April 18 police action, have triggered dozens of similar protests at schools from California to Boston.

Last week, Columbia took no action when two deadlines it had imposed on protesters to reach an agreement slipped by without a deal. It had cited progress in the talks.

DEMONSTRATIONS AT FRANCE’S SORBONNE, CANADA’S MCGILL

Protests at Columbia and other U.S. universities continued at full force over the weekend, with more arrests around the country and skirmishes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA on Sunday.

Civil rights groups have criticized police violence at campuses such as Atlanta’s Emory University and the University of Texas at Austin, where police in riot gear and on horseback moved against the protesters last week, taking dozens into custody before charges against them were dropped for lacking probable cause.

Dozens of people at Virginia Tech were arrested overnight on Sunday at a student-led encampment, according to local media reports. A video posted on social media showed protesters chanting, “Shame on you,” as some were detained.

A spokesman for university did not immediately respond to a request for comment or give details on those detained.

The school in a post on its website said officials had told the protesters to leave, but they refused to comply. “The university recognized that the situation had the increasing potential to become unsafe,” the statement said, adding that those who refused to leave were charged with trespassing.

Similar demonstrations have sprung up at universities in other countries. Students at McGill University in Montreal set up about 20 anti-Israel protest camps on Saturday demanding the university divest from companies with links to Israel.

By Monday, the number of encampments on the downtown campus had tripled, but many were not set up by members of the McGill community, according to a statement by the university.

McGill also said it was investigating what it said was video evidence of some people using “unequivocally antisemitic language and intimidating behavior.” Students denied the allegation.

In Paris, days after protests at the elite Sciences Po school, police evacuated dozens of protesters who had set up tents in the yard of the Sorbonne University on Monday to mark their anger with the war in Gaza, one of the students told Reuters.

The post Columbia Threatens to Suspend Anti-Israel Protesters After Talks Fail first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

i24 News – Egypt’s Foreign Minister on Monday said he is “hopeful” about a new proposal for a truce in Gaza as a Hamas delegation was due in Cairo for talks. “There is a proposal on the table [and it is] up to the two sides to consider and accept,” said Sameh Shoukry in Riyadh at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

“We are hopeful,” he added, explaining that “the proposal has taken into account the positions of both sides and has tried to extract moderation. We are waiting to have a final decision. There are factors that will have an impact on both side’s decisions, but I hope that all will rise to the occasion.”

Meanwhile, reports by Financial Times and The New York Times suggest Israel lowered to 33 the number of hostages expected to be released by Hamas in return for ceasefire and release of Palestinian prisoners.

Biden’s remark was followed by the Egyptian proposal, cooked by the Americans with Israel’s knowledge and silent agreement, without the knowledge of Qatar… The Qataris are counterproductive in the deals,’

Brig. Gen. (ret.) Hanan Gefen discusses the latest deal proposal pic.twitter.com/aL5LDinGm3

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) April 29, 2024

As Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue their efforts as mediators of the Israel-Hamas negotiations, Israeli official told i24NEWS that Israel expected an answer to its latest proposal by Tuesday.

The U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken has called the latest offer “extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous.”

The post Egypt ‘Hopeful’ About New Proposal for Hostages-Truce Deal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.