By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/israel-and-hamas-appear-far-from-cease-fire-agreement Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio Israel and Hamas appear to be far from a cease-fire deal despite Hamas’ formal response to an Israeli-backed proposal. The U.S. said that Hamas had requested changes to the three-stage proposal and questioned whether Hamas was negotiating in good faith. Nick Schifrin reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: Tonight, Israel and Hamas appear to be far from any kind of cease-fire deal. That's despite Hamas' formal response to an Israeli backed proposal. Amna Nawaz: Today, the U.S. said that Hamas had requested changes to the three-stage proposal and questioned whether Hamas was negotiating in good faith.Nick Schifrin continues to follow this all for us.So, Nick, tell us more about what we heard from the U.S. today and what we know about Hamas' response. Nick Schifrin: Amna, there was a lot of he said/he said/he said today Israel, Hamas, and the United States, and, as you guys just put it, really no sign that Hamas and Israel are any closer to any kind of deal.Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized Hamas for waiting nearly two weeks since President Biden laid out the details of this cease-fire to give this formal response that Hamas has given, and Blinken criticized Hamas for proposing changes that he said went beyond positions that Hamas previously took.Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State: Some of those are workable changes. Some, as I said, are not. I don't want to characterize it further, but at some point in a negotiation — and this has gone back-and-forth for a long time — if one side continues to change its demands, including making demands and insisting on changes for things that it had already accepted, you have to question whether they're proceeding in good faith or not. Nick Schifrin: So, clearly, Blinken questioning whether Hamas actually wanted any kind of cease-fire proposal. And U.S. officials have been doubting whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in fact wanted an end to the war.As for the changes themselves, Hamas suggested that it's looking for a timeline for both the permanent cease-fire, as well as the full withdrawal of Israeli troops. And, as we have been talking about, this proposal only requires Israel to go for a temporary cease-fire and for that temporary cease-fire to continue as long as the two sides are negotiated.Hamas today, though, called its response responsible, serious and positive, and accused Blinken of seeing things — quote — "through an Israeli lens." But, as we have been talking also, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not formally endorsed this plan, at least not in public. And an Israeli official told me today that Hamas — quote — "rejected the proposal," which it hasn't.So, clearly a lot of negotiating in public and both sides trying to blame the other. Geoff Bennett: Yes.Meantime, Nick, Lebanese Hezbollah launched this massive barrage into Israel. How much concern is there about an escalation of this war into Northern Israel? Nick Schifrin: There's a huge amount of concern, Geoff, among U.S. officials who have been working on this since October the 7th, because even if both sides leaders don't want war, the exchange of fire across the Lebanese border has been so large and so consistent, the chance of an unintended conflict has been very high. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Jun 12, 2024 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi is a foreign affairs producer, based in Washington DC. She's a Columbia Journalism School graduate with an M.A. in Political journalism. She was one of the leading members of the NewsHour team that won the 2024 Peabody award for News for our coverage of the war in Gaza and Israel. @Zebaism