U.S. officials have not given up hope of landing a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, but
are increasingly pessimistic that a breakthrough can come anytime soon.
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that senior U.S. officials are now privately acknowledging that a Gaza ceasefire agreement may not happen before President Joe Biden’s
term ends in January.
Meanwhile, United Nations political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned the Security Council on Friday that if things continue as they are between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah ‘we risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far.’
While noting the dim prospects, several U.S. officials said this was not an administration-wide assessment.
“I do not rule it out,” said one of the U.S. officials when asked whether a deal can be struck before the end of Biden’s term, adding the administration continues to work on bridging the remaining gaps.
"You can bring a horse to water but you can't force it to drink," says @FirasMaksad about the Biden Administration's efforts to move Netanyahu toward a ceasefire in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/P95wSUEQoS
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“Doesn’t mean it will get done,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Since August, senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken have raised expectations for a Gaza truce, saying a deal was 90% agreed and they were working to iron out the few but challenging disagreements.
But shifting demands from both Israel and Hamas have repeatedly spiked efforts to reach a deal to end the nearly year-long bloodshed and have been a source of deep frustration
for Biden administration officials, one of the sources familiar with the thinking said.
The odds of a quick resolution to the Gaza conflict appeared even smaller after an unprecedented attack on Hezbollah this week in which pagers and radios used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands.
On Friday, Israel killed a top commander with the Iran-aligned Lebanon-based armed group Hezbollah in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“We don’t appear to be particularly close at the moment,” a senior administration official said.
As the negotiators tried to hammer out an agreement, doubts remained over whether Israel and Hamas were committed to clinching a deal on Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added new demands for the proposal in July, while Hamas did the same over the prisoners it wants released.
“The war evolved in many different ways, and conditions on the ground changed in many different ways, and the outlooks and the perspectives of the two sides changed as the conflict and the violence wore on,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday.
“All of that context affects the decision-making process of leaders involved,” Kirby said.
The U.S. wants Israel and Hamas to engage with greater urgency before the parallel conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates further, sucking up more of the diplomatic
oxygen in the region, one of the sources said.
Disagreement over the status of a narrow stretch of land known as the Philadelphi corridor on Gaza’s border with Egypt has been one of two key points of contention throughout August.
Despite some progress the issue remains unresolved.
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer says Benjamin Netanyahu refutes the claim that he "jeopardised" Gaza ceasefire negotiations due to "political considerations".https://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3
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More recently, the numbers and types of prisoners to be exchanged has emerged as the key issue and has led to an impasse, sources and officials said.
Still, Biden said he was not giving up on the possibility of a Gaza truce, when asked whether an agreement remained realistic.
“If I ever said it was not realistic, I might as well leave. A lot of things don’t look realistic until you get it done. We have to keep at it,” Biden told reporters.
Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, while abducting 250 others, triggering the latest round of fighting in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which now threatens to escalate into a major regional conflict.
(REUTERS)
