US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken by phone – in Biden’s final week in office – as momentum builds towards a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal. Israel and Hamas are making progress, but uncertainty remains over key aspects of the potential agreement.
The White House said Biden discussed the “fundamentally changed regional circumstances” following Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening of Iran’s power in the region. Netanyahu’s office said he had updated Biden on instructions he had given to senior negotiators in Doha “to advance the release of the hostages.”
During Sunday’s call, which was the first to be publicly announced since October, Biden “stressed the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal.”
It came a day after Netanyahu sent a top Israeli security delegation, including the directors of the Mossad spy agency and Shin Bet security service, to indirect negotiations in Qatar’s capital mediated by Qatari, US, and Egyptian officials.
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu was meeting with cabinet members who opposed a ceasefire deal to persuade them not to resign. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy met with his Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem and discussed progress on a deal.
On Saturday, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, held meetings with the Israeli prime minister. This is amidst efforts to reach an agreement before 20 January– the date of his inauguration as the president-elect.
Trump has, in the past, said “all hell would break loose” if the hostages were not freed before he came back to the White House.
Last Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an agreement was “very close” and that he hoped to “get it over the line” before Trump took office. He added that any deal would be based on the proposals Biden set out in May.
But much is still uncertain about several major questions, not least whether such a preliminary deal would be accompanied by a durable peace and whether Israel’s army will agree to withdraw fully from Gaza. Anshel Pfeffer, the Economist’s Israel correspondent, says, “I think this is one of the most pessimistic periods” toward a fast-consummated agreement.
