The US is reviewing Hamas’ response to a ceasefire and hostage proposal “and discussing it with our partners in the region,” Matthew Miller said.

Miller on Monday afternoon said that the US received the response in the “last hour, 90 minutes.”

Israel’s military has issued a call for residents of eastern Rafah to “evacuate immediately,” a day after the country’s defense minister told troops inside Gaza to expect “intense action in Rafah in the near future.” cnn.it/4b7BGVs

President Joe Biden will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, sources familiar with the call tell Arlette Saenz & Sam Fossum

“I’m fundamentally concerned that we’re on the wrong side of history and we are hurting our interests,” said Hala Rharrit, the first career US diplomat to resign over the Biden administration's policies on the war in Gaza cnn.com/2024/05/03/pol…

Bit more on this -- Russian and US troops have been operating out of the same military base in Niger **for at least several weeks,** we're told. Russians have been using a separate hangar on the base, but “it is not that big of an area,” per one source. cnn.com/2024/05/02/pol…

“Whoever stays until the end, will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us.”

The journalists risking their lives to report on Gaza -- a very important story on World Press Freedom Day cnn.com/2024/05/02/mid…

“All of them are linked together. None go forward without the others”

Latest on the ambitious and complicated mega-deal tying the US, Saudi, Israel, and a potential future Palestinian state.

From Becky Anderson, Mostafa Salem & me cnn.com/2024/05/02/mid…

Blinken again called on Hamas to accept the ceasefire and hostage proposal on the table, suggesting it was as good a deal as they are going to get.

“There is no time for further haggling. The deal is there. They should take it,” he said in Israel.

cnn.com/2024/04/30/pol…

.Secretary Antony Blinken held another round of high-stakes talks in Israel on Wednesday as the US seeks to ratchet up the pressure on Hamas to accept a ceasefire and hostage release deal, while also seeking to forestall an Israeli military offensive in Rafah cnn.com/2024/04/30/pol…

Pretty wild. April 30, 1968 - NYPD bust of Hamilton Hall protestors at Columbia University.

April 30, 2024 - NYPD bust of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University.
exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/…

.Secretary Antony Blinken says he believes a hostage and ceasefire deal is “achievable because the Israelis put a strong proposal on the table.”

He says US wants to see agreement come together “in the coming days,” and the ball is in Hamas' court.

“No more excuses. The time to act is now”

The first shipments of aid to Gaza via Erez crossing are leaving from Jordan Tuesday, Secretary Antony Blinken says. He says there has been “real, important progress,” but “more still needs to be done, and in particular, we have to make sure that our focus is not only on inputs but on impact”

The US is still deciding whether to restrict the military assistance to one IDF unit – reported to be the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion. That battalion was implicated in the January 2022 death of an elderly Palestinian American man, Omar Assad. cnn.com/2024/04/29/pol…

New: US State Dept determines five Israeli security units committed gross violations of human rights prior to outbreak of the war with Hamas, but still deciding whether to restrict military assistance to one of the units under U.S. law. ⁦Jennifer Hansler⁩ cnn.com/2024/04/29/pol…

.Department of State determined that five Israeli security units committed gross violations of human rights prior to October 7, but is still deciding whether to restrict military assistance to one of the units under US law. The The other four “have effectively remediated these violations”

.Secretary Antony Blinken will travel to Saudi Arabia to discuss ceasefire in Gaza, two state solution

Tune into CNN this hr for a piece of my intv w/ Sec Blinken in Beijing. He said there’s evidence of China attempting “to influence & arguably interfere” in US elections.. & “it’s a concern” that China is seeking to mirror Russia’s playbook of influence campaigns in the US.

'I made clear that if China does not address this problem we will,' says Sec Blinken in Beijing of China's support for Russia's defense industrial base which is enabling Russia to continue pursuing its assault on Ukraine war.