WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said, as US officials rushed to reach a ceasefire agreement and release hostages before Biden leaves office on January 20th.
Biden and Netanyahu discussed ongoing efforts to halt fighting in the Palestinian enclave and free the 98 hostages still being held, the White House said in a statement.
Biden “emphasized the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of hostages, with an increase in humanitarian aid made possible by a halt in fighting under the agreement,” the statement said.
Netanyahu updated Biden on progress and the order he gave his high-level security delegation in Doha to advance a hostage deal, the Israeli prime minister said in a statement.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the parties were “very, very close” to reaching a deal, but still needed to cross the finish line. .
He said Biden receives daily updates on negotiations in Doha, where Israeli and Palestinian officials have said since Thursday that some progress has been made in talks between Israel and the militant group Hamas.
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“We are still determined to use every day we have in office to achieve this,” Sullivan said. “And we are not, by any stretch of the imagination, leaving that aside.”
He said there was still a chance of reaching a deal before Biden leaves office, but that it was also possible that “Hamas, in particular, would remain intransigent.”
Israel attacked Gaza after Hamas fighters crossed the borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli data.
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Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave devastated and wracked by a humanitarian crisis, and most of the population displaced.
The vice president-elect of the United States, JD Vance, told the program “Fox News Sunday”, in an interview recorded on Saturday, that he hopes that an agreement for the release of US hostages in the Middle East will be announced in the final days of the administration Biden, maybe in the last day or two.
President-elect Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, strongly supported Netanyahu’s goal of destroying Hamas. He promised to bring peace to the Middle East, but did not say how.
