Blinken wraps up Mideast tour with Gaza truce plea

Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken said Tuesday that "time is of the essence" to secure a Gaza truce as he wrapped up a Middle East tour with a plea for a deal.

The U.S. secretary of state closed his ninth wartime trip to the region in which he warned that the U.S.-backed truce proposal may be the "last chance" to broker an end the conflict, after stops in key Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt as well as Israel.

"With every passing day, more bad things can happen to more good people who don't deserve it," he told reporters before flying out of the Qatari capital Doha.

"This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line," he said of the truce proposal.

The United States last week presented ideas to bridge gaps and, through Qatar and Egypt, has pressed heavily on Hamas to accept and return to talks this week in Cairo.

But a day after Blinken said that U.S. ally Israel was on board, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.

Netanyahu insisted that Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli troops seized from Hamas, who rely on secret tunnels to bring in weapons.

Blinken said that Israel had already agreed on the "schedule and location" of troop withdrawals from Gaza.

Since the start of the conflict, it was made "very clear that the United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel", Blinken said when asked about Netanyahu's remarks.

A senior U.S. official accompanying Blinken, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, was more blunt, saying that such "maximalist...