U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken called on Hamas on Tues­day to ac­cept a U.S.-backed pro­pos­al for a Gaza cease-fire and hostage re­lease, say­ing that the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil’s vote made it “as clear as it pos­si­bly could be” that the world sup­ports the plan.

“Every­one’s vote is in, ex­cept for one vote, and that’s Hamas,” Blinken told re­porters in Tel Aviv af­ter meet­ing with Is­raeli of­fi­cials. He said Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu had reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment to the pro­pos­al when they met late Mon­day.

Hamas wel­comed Biden’s ini­tial an­nounce­ment of the plan as well as the U.N. res­o­lu­tion en­dors­ing it, but has yet to sub­mit its of­fi­cial re­sponse. Blinken said Hamas’ re­sponse to the U.N. vote was a “hope­ful sign,” but that me­di­a­tors are still await­ing word from the group’s lead­ers in Gaza.

“That’s what counts. And that’s what we don’t have yet. And that’s why I say we’re wait­ing to see it. Every­one has said yes, ex­cept for Hamas,” he said.

Hamas said ear­li­er Tues­day that one of its com­man­ders in the oc­cu­pied West Bank was killed in a clash with Is­raeli forces while Is­rael said four sol­diers were killed in an ex­plo­sion in Rafah.

Al­so Tues­day, the U.N. hu­man rights of­fice said both Is­raeli forces and Pales­tin­ian armed groups may have com­mit­ted war crimes in con­nec­tion with a dead­ly raid by Is­raeli forces that freed four hostages and killed at least 274 Pales­tini­ans over the week­end.

Is­rael’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 36,730 peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry, which does not dis­tin­guish be­tween com­bat­ants and civil­ians in its count. Pales­tini­ans are fac­ing wide­spread hunger be­cause the war has large­ly cut off the flow of food, med­i­cine and oth­er sup­plies. U.N. agen­cies say over 1 mil­lion in Gaza could ex­pe­ri­ence the high­est lev­el of star­va­tion by mid-Ju­ly.

Is­rael launched the war af­ter Hamas’ Oct. 7 at­tack, in which mil­i­tants stormed in­to south­ern Is­rael, killed some 1,200 peo­ple — most­ly civil­ians — and ab­duct­ed about 250.

BY THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS