US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Saturday laid the blame for the situation in Gaza on Hamas and stated that the onus was on the terror organization for advancing the proposed hostage deal.

“We await to see whether, in effect, [Hamas] can take ‘yes’ for an answer on the ceasefire and release the hostages. And the reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” Blinken said.

“In the meantime, even as we are doing that, we are working every single day, the (US) president is working every single day, to make sure that we are doing what we can so that the people in Gaza who are caught in a crossfire of Hamas’s is making, get the help, the assistance, the support they need,” he further said.

Blinken also warned Israel that the US would not be able to support a military operation in Rafah, claiming that the damage it would cause would be “beyond what is acceptable.”

Talking about normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, he said that the central role of Israeli-Saudi normalization was to isolate Iran diplomatically and prevent them from increasing their influence.

Blinken said that there are already signs of the power and influence cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia could achieve.