GAZA STRIP — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday as mediators seek to cement a Gaza ceasefire pact as a senior Hamas official dismissed "American diktats" in negotiations.
Making his ninth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war broke out with the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack, Blinken is expected to meet Israeli leaders before truce talks resume in Cairo in the coming days.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have said discussions to clinch a ceasefire in the more than 10-month-old war were making progress, and US President Joe Biden said "we are closer than we have ever been."
But Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri undercut the cautious optimism, telling AFP that signs of progress after two days of talks in Doha were "an illusion."
"We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats," he said.
Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded.
The stakes have risen since the late July killings in quick succession of Iran-backed militant leaders, including Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has deepened with a feared polio outbreak.
After mediators announced they had put forward a "bridging proposal" to close remaining gaps between the warring sides, Hamas said it rejected "new conditions" from Israel and called for a plan outlined by Biden in late May to be implemented.
Before Blinken departed for Tel Aviv on Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office called for "heavy pressure" on Hamas to reach a breakthrough.
The Palestinian group, as well as some analysts and Israeli protesters, have accused Netanyahu of hamstringing a deal to safeguard his hard-right ruling coalition.
Strikes in Lebanon, Gaza
As efforts towards a long-sought truce continued, so has the violence in Gaza but also in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Lebanon, where Hamas ally Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces throughout the war.
Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli air strike on Saturday in the Nabatieh area killed 10 Syrians, including a woman and her two children, one of the deadliest attacks on south Lebanon since October.
Israel's military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility.
In Hamas-run Gaza, the civil defense agency said an Israeli air strike killed 15 people from a single Palestinian family.
The Israeli military told AFP its forces had targeted rocket launchers in central Gaza and that it was looking into "reports... that as a result of the strike, civilians in an adjacent structure were killed".
The deaths in Al-Zawaida helped push the Gaza health ministry's war death toll to 40,074.
The United Nations appealed Friday for seven-day pauses in the fighting so it could vaccinate children against polio, as the Palestinian health ministry reported Gaza's first polio case in 25 years.
'Conclude agreement'
Iran and its regional allies have vowed retaliation for Haniyeh's death in Tehran, an attack which Israel has not claimed responsibility for, and for an Israeli strike in Beirut that killed a top Hezbollah commander.
Western and Arab diplomats have been shuttling around the region to push for a Gaza deal, which they see as the best way to avert a wider conflagration following the high-profile killings.
In Israel, Blinken will seek to "conclude the agreement for a ceasefire and release of hostages and detainees," the State Department said.
The proposed deal, which Biden outlined on May 31 but attributed to Israel, would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks and lead to the release of hostages and prisoners.
In Gaza, civilians have been on the move again after the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders.
Israeli troops have also expanded operations around Gaza's main southern city of Khan Yunis, Israel's military said Saturday.
In the West Bank, Israel said late Saturday it had killed "two senior Hamas officials" in Jenin.