White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced today that mediators from Qatar and Egypt intend to engage Hamas soon to explore the possibility of advancing the Israeli hostage-ceasefire proposal put forth by US President Joe Biden.
Speaking to reporters during a Ukraine peace summit, Sullivan was asked about the diplomatic efforts aimed at securing an agreement for Hamas to release hostages taken on October 7 in exchange for a ceasefire of at least six weeks.
Sullivan mentioned that he had a brief conversation with one of the key mediators, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and that they planned to discuss Gaza further on Sunday while attending the Ukraine conference in Switzerland.
On Thursday, Biden expressed skepticism about reaching a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the near future, stating that Hamas needs to align its position more closely with the US-backed Israeli proposal currently on the table.
Hamas maintains that any agreement must guarantee an end to the war, a condition Israel rejects despite its proposal suggesting a potential permanent cessation of hostilities. Israel has characterized Hamas’s response to its latest proposal as a complete rejection.
Sullivan indicated that US officials have thoroughly reviewed Hamas’s response. “We think some of the edits are not unexpected and can be managed. Some of them are inconsistent both with what President Biden laid out and what the UN Security Council endorsed. And we are having to deal with that reality,” he stated.
He further explained that US officials believe there is still a pathway to an agreement and that the next step involves Qatari and Egyptian mediators negotiating with Hamas to determine which aspects of the proposal can be accepted and which cannot.
“We anticipate a back-and-forth between the mediators and Hamas. We’ll see where we stand at that point. We will keep consulting with the Israelis and then hopefully at some point next week we’ll be able to report to you where we think things stand and what we see as being the next step to try to bring this to closure,” Sullivan concluded.
{Dov T. Heller – Matzav.com}
