There’s been new progress in negotiations for a hostage deal, White House Press Secretary Karin Jean Pierre told reporters in Washington Monday as Israel waited for Hamas’s response to a proposal that could see the return of some but not all of the remaining captives in Gaza.
“There is a deal on the table, and they need to take it. We believe that all efforts need to be brought to bear to convince Hamas to accept the proposal immediately,” she said.
US President Joe Biden spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the counters of a deal on Sunday and is expected to speak with the Emir of Qatar and the President of Egypt on Monday, Jean Pierre said.
“We have to get to this hostage deal, so we can get to a ceasefire” that would allow for the increase in the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid into Gaza, she said.
An initial deal had looked at the release of 40 hostages — women, elderly, and infirmed — in exchange for a six-week pause to the war, It expected that should a deal be in place, Israel would temporarily suspend its plans to enter Rafah to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions there.
KAN reported that the deal may only include 33 live hostages, It added that as part of the deal, Israel would withdraw its forces from the Netzarim corridor and that it would agree not to personally inspect Palestinians heading to northern Gaza from the south.
At the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, that an extraordinary effort had been made to arrive at a deal. The US has worked alongside the main mediators of the deal, Egypt and Qatar, to ensure that the hostages are returned.
“Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily – extraordinarily – generous on the part of Israel. And in this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas. They have to decide, and they have to decide quickly.
“So we’re looking to that, and I’m hopeful that they will make the right decision and we can have a fundamental change in the dynamic,” Blinken said.
As part of the push for a deal, he is expected to visit Jordan and Israel after leaving Saudi Arabia.
Further discussions on Rafah
Among the topics under discussion with Israeli officials, will be US concerns over the Rafah operation. It wants to ensure that Israel has plans to protect civilians in Rafah, as it pursues Hamas.
“We’ve said clearly and for some time now on Rafah that in the absence of a plan to ensure that civilians will not be – will not be harmed, we can’t support a major military operation in Rafah. And we have not yet seen a plan that gives us confidence that civilians can be effectively protected,” Blinken said.
While in Saudi Arabia he held talks on a deal that would see a security pact between Riyadh and Washington and a normalization deal between Israel and the Kingdom as well as a path to Palestinian statehood.
Blinken said that such an agreement was the best response to Iranian aggression in the region.
“I think the single biggest, most effective rebuke to both Iran and Hamas would be Israel having normal relations with every country in this region and the realization of a Palestinian state.,” Blinken said.
He noted that the work the US and Saudi Arabia had done on their own bilateral agreement, had been mostly completed.
“In terms of our own agreements, I think, is potentially very close to completion. But then to move forward with normalization, two things will be required: calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.
“So to the extent we finish our work between us, then I think what’s been a hypothetical or a theoretical question suddenly becomes real. And people will have to make decisions,” Blinken said. While in Riyadh he meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who was also in Riyadh for the World Economic Forum meeting, also described the Israeli proposal as “generous.”
It included a 40-day pause in fighting and the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners as well as Israeli hostages, he told a WEF audience.
“I hope Hamas does take this deal and frankly, all the pressure in the world and all the eyes in the world should be on them today saying ‘take that deal’,” Cameron said.
Cameron is among several foreign ministers in Riyadh, including from the US, France, Jordan, and Egypt, as part of a diplomatic push to bring an end to the Gaza war.
Reuters and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.
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