[Source: Reuters]

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday on a Middle East tour aimed at intensifying diplomatic pressure to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza this week to end the bloodshed between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

On his 10th trip to the region since the war began in October, Blinken will meet on Monday with senior Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior State Department official said.

After Israel, Blinken will continue to Egypt.

The talks to strike a deal for a truce and return of hostages held in Gaza were now at an “inflection point”, a senior Biden administration official told reporters en route to Tel Aviv, adding Blinken was going to stress to all parties the importance of getting this deal over the finish line.

The mediating countries – Qatar, the United States and Egypt – have so far failed to narrow enough differences to reach an agreement in months of on-off negotiations, and violence continued unabated in Gaza on Sunday.

Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday that he still insists Israeli forces remain on a border strip that runs between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi Corridor, to prevent weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

Netanyahu was responding to an Israeli TV news report which said that in a meeting with the negotiators, the prime minister was urged to show more flexibility on some of the issues.

His office said Netanyahu would continue to work towards advancing a deal that maximizes the number of living hostages released and allows for Israel’s war objectives to be achieved, including not allowing Hamas to retain control of Gaza.

A strike killed at least 21 people including six children in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian health authorities said.

The children and their mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the central town of Deir Al-Balah, health officials said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The Israeli military said it destroyed rocket launchers used to hit Israel from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the scene of intense fighting in recent weeks, and killed 20 Palestinian militants.

In the occupied West Bank, where violence has escalated since the war in Gaza broke out in October last year, an Israeli man died from wounds sustained in an attack, according to a hospital spokesperson.