President Joe Biden said Monday that he hopes the Israel-Hamas war will reach a ceasefire by next week.
“I hope we can have a ceasefire by next Monday,” Biden said in response to questions from reporters while in New York.
“My national security adviser says we're close, we're getting closer, but we're not done yet,” he said.
The White House is working to negotiate a ceasefire amid mounting pressure from progressives and Palestinian allies.
NBC News reported that Qatar was mediating negotiations between Israel and Hamas this week, with ceasefire talks held in Paris between U.S., Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials.
Senior government officials and Arab diplomats said negotiators were rushing toward a temporary ceasefire. Officials say this will not only free some of the hostages captured on October 7 and get more aid to starving Gazans, but will also allow for the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on March 10. The move is said to be to prevent violence from erupting throughout the region.
Appearing on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” on Monday, Biden said there was an “agreement with Israel not to conduct any operations during Ramadan” to “give time to rescue all the hostages.” It revealed that.
“While progress has been made, there are still hurdles that need to be resolved,” a person familiar with the Qatar negotiations told NBC News. This includes disputes over the ratio of hostages to Palestinian prisoners to be released.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that delegates had “reached an understanding” of what the “basic contours of a hostage deal for a temporary ceasefire” would be.
“Qatar and Egypt will have to have indirect talks with Hamas because ultimately they will have to agree to release the hostages,” Sullivan said in an interview with CNN, but the deal is still being negotiated. Therefore, details were not disclosed. “That work is underway and we hope to get to the point where there is actually a solid final agreement on this issue within the next few days, but we will have to wait and see.”
The Israeli military is planning a ground assault on Rafah, where about 1.5 million people have fled. Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the military had proposed a plan to evacuate civilians.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that if a temporary ceasefire were reached, Israel would “continue fighting until the last hostage is returned.”
The war began on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 200, according to the Israeli government. Nearly 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The previous week-long ceasefire, which ended on December 1, saw the release of more than 100 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
