TEL AVIV — Israeli officials are weighing an Egyptian proposal for a small-scale cease-fire with Hamas aimed at building momentum for a larger deal, an Israeli official told NBC News, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived for a renewed diplomatic push.
Israel’s security Cabinet has discussed the Egyptian proposal for a two-week truce in Gaza, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The Egyptian proposal calls for the release of just six Israeli hostages in exchange, the official said. It was suggested by Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, the new head of Egyptian intelligence, who took up his post last week.
The proposal was first reported by Axios.
Blinken arrived in Israel early Tuesday as part of a Middle East tour aimed at renewing talks for a comprehensive deal to end the intensifying regional conflict after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
It comes as Israel continues to mount a deadly offensive in northern Gaza, where thousands of people have fled intense Israeli operations in areas like the Jabalia refugee camp in recent days. Israeli forces also continued their invasion of southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah on Tuesday while striking parts of the country's capital, Beirut, in an assault that sparked the evacuation of a local hospital.
“The thinking is that efforts at a big deal kept meeting challenges. So the idea is to get the momentum going with a smaller deal,” the Israeli official said. The official cautioned that while the proposal has been discussed by Israeli leaders, it has not been approved.
It’s also unclear if Hamas would be open to a smaller agreement.
While the U.S. is hopeful that the killing of the militant group's hard-line leader last week could create an opportunity for negotiations, a U.S. official acknowledged that Washington does not know who — if anyone — is currently in charge of Hamas and could negotiate on its behalf.
Asked about the Egyptian proposal, a U.S. official told NBC News: “Who are you going to negotiate with? Hamas has to decide on its next leader.”
Later, Blinken met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and discussed the need to chart "a new path forward in the post-conflict period that allows Palestinians to rebuild their lives and provides governance, security, and reconstruction for Gaza," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
"The Secretary emphasized the need for Israel to take additional steps to increase and sustain the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure that assistance reaches civilians throughout Gaza," the statement added.
Beirut hospitals hit
As Blinken arrived in Israel, an NBC News team visited a residential area adjacent to the Rafic Al Hariri Hospital in southern Beirut that had been struck by the Israeli military.
Though Israel regularly warns about impending airstrikes in the Lebanese capital, this zone was hit without any warning. It is only steps away from one of the largest and most important hospitals in Lebanon’s capital, which was already struggling with an influx of injured people from all over the country.
Family members were still digging through the rubble looking for missing loved ones, rescue workers said hours after the attack.
Here, as everywhere in Lebanon, there were signs of the government’s absence. Two earth movers dug through a chaotic scene that looked like an entire leveled city block. About a few dozen rescue workers were on hand as members of the public openly walked through the scene.
There were no overt signs of military activity in the area. Children’s shoes, bits of clothing and other intimate odds and ends stuck out amid the pulverized concrete and jutting rebar.
“There were no weapons, there were no bullets, there were no missiles, you looked and saw and searched,” said Mohammad Al Maqdad, who said he lost at least 20 members of his family in the strike. “Was there a missile here?”
The only weapons here, he said, came from Israel and America.
Officials at another hospital in Dahieh, which is known as a Hezbollah stronghold, told NBC News they had evacuated the medical facility after Israel claimed a Hezbollah cash bunker was under the site.
The Israeli military alleged that Hezbollah has hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold stashed in a bunker built under the Sahel General Hospital, a charge the facility’s director denied.
The Israel Defense Forces said it would not attack the hospital directly, but the medical facility’s director, Dr. Fadi Alami, told NBC News that officials still moved to evacuate the hospital.
He said they hoped to be able to return patients to the facility by late Tuesday morning as he dismissed the Israeli military’s allegations.
“We completely deny the enemy allegations,” he said. “They’re dreaming. This whole thing is theater.”
At least 13 people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli strike nearby Monday night that also caused damage to the Rafik Hariri University Hospital in southern Beirut, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said that overnight it had struck “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities, command centers, and additional terror targets in Beirut.”
Blinken's diplomatic push
About 150 miles south in Jerusalem, the U.S.' top diplomat renewed efforts to calm the fighting in the spiraling conflict. A senior State Department official told NBC News, which is traveling with Blinken, that he had five major goals on his trip to the region.
At the top of his list of priorities was discussing with Israel how to bring an end to the fighting in Gaza and secure the release of the hostages who remain there, the official said. Blinken’s immediate focus is also on pressing Israel to get more food and other aid into northern Gaza where there is a growing hunger crisis, the official said.
He will also look to discuss a postwar plan for the Palestinian enclave and to drill down on the humanitarian steps Israel must take to relieve widespread suffering its yearlong military offensive has caused in the Gaza Strip.
Blinken will look to push forward talks on how to secure a diplomatic solution to the fighting in Lebanon and to discuss with Israeli officials their expected response to a strike launched by Iran in retaliation for the assassinations of top Hamas and Hezbollah commanders.
The secretary of state will also discuss the use of an advanced anti-missile system sent by the U.S. to Israel to fortify the country's already robust missile defense program, which was put in place this week.
It comes as the U.S. investigates an apparent leak of top-secret documents showing U.S. spy agencies tracking possible Israeli preparations for the strike against Iran.
Raf Sanchez reported from Tel Aviv, Andrea Mitchell from Jerusalem, Matt Bradley and Ziad Jaber from Beirut and Chantal Da Silva from London.
