Biden urges Israel PM to “capitalize on progress” in hostage release talks, pushing back on Netanyahu posturing
“We’re now at the stage of having gaps that have to close” to finalize hostage release deal, a senior U.S. official said Sunday. “But there has been real progress over the last few weeks.”
President Biden in a call with the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday stressed the need to “capitalize on progress” in recent negotiations for the release of the remaining over 100 hostages held by Hamas, in a seemingly broader White House effort to subtly push back on recent posturing by Netanyahu.
Netanyahu last week seemingly flat out rejected a Hamas counterproposal on a phased deal for the release of all the hostages and an extended pause in fighting as “delusional,” in a solo press conference conducted just after Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on his fifth trip to the region, and his seventh to Israel, since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
“The President emphasized the need to capitalize on progress made in negotiations to secure the release of all hostages as soon as possible,” the White House stated in a read-out of the 45 minute call between the two leaders who have known each other for forty years.
“He also called for urgent and specific steps to increase the throughput and consistency of humanitarian assistance to innocent Palestinian civilians,” it continued.
A U.S. senior administration official, somewhat unusually, backgrounded some reporters on the call shortly after it occurred, in what also may be part of an unacknowledged White House effort to gently push back a bit on the Israeli Prime Minister’s office sometimes seeming to try to spin their communications to his political benefit at home. The U.S. administration official emphasized that getting the release of all the remaining hostages is President Biden and the White House’s top priority. Wholly unspoken was the sense perhaps that it is not always clear in practice that it is Netanyahu’s top priority.
“I’d say about two thirds of the call really focused on a hostage deal,” the senior administration official said. “This has been really a primary focus on the President’s over the last month.”
“We’ve been engaged really directly and regularly in regional capitals in an effort to hammer out a framework proposal, and I think that framework pretty much is now in place,” the senior administration official continued. There are still “gaps that need to be closed; some of them are significant. But there has been real progress over the last few weeks, and we are now seeking to do all we possibly can to capitalize on it.”
“The hostage deal…would also produce a humanitarian pause” during which “humanitarian implementers are better able to move assistance through Gaza, which is critical,” the American official continued. “So it’s very much in our interest to get it done, mainly to get the hostages out of Gaza…and reunited with their families. But also because the way the deal is structured, we believe it serves multiple important, even critical objectives.”
“We now have in place the frame for the deal, with just some gaps,” the senior administration official said. “So it’s working on closing those gaps … Some of the gaps are significant, but that’s what happens in negotiations.”
“I think it has made significant progress…over the last month,” the official said. “And the President has been directly engaged in it, in the details and calling these leaders and trying to kind of hammer it out. So we’re now at the stage of having gaps that have to close. And we’re hoping to be able to make some progress here over the coming week.”
The official declined to confirm or deny a reporter’s query that CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet with his Egyptian, Qatari and, if Netanyahu permits, Israeli counterparts, in Egypt on Tuesday to try to advance the hostage deal (the CIA Director’s travel is generally more closely held than that of other U.S. cabinet officials).
He did say that Biden held a secure call Sunday morning with Burns, Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his White House team to discuss the situation in the Middle East, in addition to his call with Netanyahu. On Monday, President Biden is due to host Jordanian King Abdullah at the White House.
White House: military assault on Rafah should not proceed under current conditions
On the issue of a potential Israeli military operation targeting Hamas in the southern Gaza border city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, the White House said that without a serious and implementable plan to safely move and support the 1.3 million people currently sheltering there, it should not occur.
“The President reaffirmed his view that a military operation in Rafah just really cannot proceed without a credible and implementable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people that are now sheltering there,” the senior administration official said.
“As of right now, you have 1.3 million people in Rafah, and they have nowhere to go,” the official said.
U.S. officials have suggested they do not believe that Israel intends to launch a major military operation on Rafah imminently, and that if one were to occur, it may be weeks away.
A European official, speaking not for attribution, said that the messages his government was getting a few weeks ago suggested Israel was not then planning for a major military operation on Rafah.
It is not clear if western officials are suggesting that Israel’s plans have changed, or, possibly, if they are suggesting that the current Israeli talk of a military operation on Rafah is meant to be a kind of psychological pressure on Hamas.
“I will say, we have heard form Israeli leaders and security officials that there’s a clear precondition for any [military operation] in Rafah that the population would have…to be moved safely…and again, how that’s done,…that is a huge question,” the U.S. official said.
“And until there was something like that that was actually planned, prepared and implementable, it is kind of a hypothetical situation, because we have made very clear that an operation under current conditions is not something that we could envision.”
The official said Biden and Netanyahu also discussed getting more humanitarian aid into Gaza, including an enormous shipment of flour that could feed over a million people for six months.
“On the call, the President…spoke to the immediate efforts to increase the throughput and consistency of humanitarian assistance to innocent Palestinian civilian,” the Amerian official said. “This includes a huge shipment of U.S.-procured flour, enough to feed about 1.4 million Gazans for the next six months,” which was also the topic of the last call that President Biden held with Netanyahu in January.
“We feel that that is now moving in place…there are some logistical issues to work out, but I think that is coming along,” the U.S. official said.
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