Joe Biden ‘hopes’ ceasefire will take effect next week
Representatives from Egypt, Qatar, the US, France and elsewhere have acted as go-betweens for Israel and Hamas.
US President Joe Biden said Monday he hoped a ceasefire in Gaza could start by the beginning of next week.
Amid a spiralling humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory, representatives from Egypt, Qatar, the US, France and elsewhere have acted as go-betweens for Israel and Hamas, seeking a halt to the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. A deal could also include the exchange of dozens of hostages for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
Mr Biden was asked during a visit to New York when such an agreement might start, and answered: “My national security adviser tells me that we’re close, we’re close, we’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire.”
Representatives from several parties, not including Hamas, met in Paris over the weekend and “came to an understanding … about what the basic contours of a hostage deal for temporary ceasefire would look like”, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday.
And after the Paris meeting, Egyptian, Qatari and US “experts” met in Doha in recent days for talks also attended by Israeli and Hamas representatives, state-linked Egyptian media said, hoping to secure a truce before Ramadan.
A Hamas source said “some new amendments” were proposed on contentious issues, but “Israel did not present any substantive position on the terms of the ceasefire and the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the troop withdrawal demand as “delusional”, and said any ceasefire would only delay a military incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million Palestinians have sought shelter.
On Monday, an unnamed Israeli official told news site Ynet the “direction (of the talks) is positive”, and Israeli media reported military and intelligence officials were headed to Qatar for further talks. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani – whose country hosts Hamas leaders and helped broker a one-week truce in November – is due in Paris this week, the French presidency said.
AFP
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