TEL AVIV/GAZA — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for talks on the Gaza cease-fire as he admitted that "complex issues" and "hard decisions "remained over a cease-fire plan.

It was his ninth urgent mission to the Middle East since the conflict in Gaza began more than 10 months ago. He did not say whether the "bridging proposal" addressed concerns cited by Hamas.

Even if the militant group accepts the proposal, negotiators will spend the coming days working on "clear understandings on implementing the agreement", Blinken said. He said there are still "complex issues "requiring "hard decisions by the leaders", without offering specifics.

The top US diplomat flew to El Alamein to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Tuesday. He will then head to meet Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in Doha, where the cease-fire talks took place last week.

At the Doha negotiations, the United States presented proposals to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas and seal the May 31 cease-fire blueprint laid out by US President Joe Biden, who has faced growing domestic criticism over the conflict.

Blinken said on Monday that Israel has accepted the US proposal and that he would speak to Egypt and Qatar to gauge the reaction of Hamas.

He played down a public rejection by Hamas of the modifications in the latest proposal and said Israel was ready to send a delegation for new talks later this week.

A series of reports, however, say Israel has set new conditions, including insisting on control of the Gaza border with Egypt that Israel seized from Hamas.

Blinken's visit came as the Israeli military said it had recovered the bodies of six hostages.

The military said its forces recovered the bodies in an overnight operation in southern Gaza, without saying when or how the six died.

In Gaza, the health ministry and a Palestinian news site said on Monday that a journalist was killed by Israeli fire the previous day in the south of the territory.

Palestinian Daily News, a website for which Ibrahim Muharab worked, announced his death "following shelling from the Israeli occupation on him and a group of journalists".