WASHINGTON, January 9. /TASS/. Tel Aviv may allow Palestinians to return to the northern Gaza Strip if hostage release negotiations with Hamas progress, the Axios news portal reported, citing its sources in Israel.

According to the news portal, Tel Aviv is using the issue of whether to let Palestinians back into Gaza as leverage to secure a new hostage deal. "We are not going to allow Palestinians to go back to their homes in northern Gaza if there is no progress with the release of hostages," Axios cited a senior Israeli official as saying. Another source told the news portal that the exact terms of the deal between Israel and Hamas could be expected to be made public within days.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a joint news conference with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani that "Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow." Blinken set off for a Middle East tour on January 4. Axios said in December 2023, citing sources, that at the end of the first week of January the top US diplomat planned to discuss the Middle East conflict with officials in the West Bank, as well as in Israel, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.