US President Joe Biden has said he hopes a ceasefire in Gaza can begin early next week.
Speaking on Monday night, he added that Israel was willing to halt operations during the Muslim month of Ramadan as part of any agreement with the Hamas terrorist group.
Amid a growing humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory caused by an Israeli bombing campaign launched in response to the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, representatives from Egypt, Qatar, the United States, France and others have acted as intermediaries between Israel and Hamas.
Its goal is to stop the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
Reports on Monday said that Hamas had been sent a draft proposal that includes a 40-day ceasefire and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages – dozens of whom are still held captive inside Gaza – at a ratio of 10 to one.
Asked during an election campaign trip to New York when such a deal might begin, Biden, holding an ice cream cone, responded: “I hope it’s by the end of the weekend.”
‘My national security advisor tells me we are close, we are close, but we are not done yet. “My hope is that next Monday we will have a ceasefire,” Biden told reporters.
US President Joe Biden (pictured Monday night with talk show host Seth Meyers) has said he hopes a ceasefire in Gaza can begin early next week.
Biden, 81, gave more details about what a deal could look like when he discussed the issue in an interview with US late-night television host Seth Meyers.
“There is a way forward, albeit with difficulty,” he told Meyers when asked how to end the conflict.
Mediators had hoped to reach an agreement before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in about two weeks.
“Ramadan is approaching and the Israelis have agreed that they will not participate in activities during Ramadan as well, to give us time to get all the hostages out,” Biden said.
Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is expected to run from March 10 to April 9.
Biden has previously talked about a six-week ceasefire.
The US president said such an agreement “gives us time to start moving in directions that many Arab countries are willing to follow” in terms of normalizing relations with Israel.
“I think if we get that temporary ceasefire, we can move in a direction where we can change the dynamic,” he said.
He added: “There are too many innocent people being killed. And Israel has stopped the attacks in Rafah.”
The US president said a temporary ceasefire would boost the process of Palestinians having their own state, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli politicians rejected calls for a two-state solution. .
Biden has strongly supported Israel despite the rising death toll in its Gaza offensive following Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel on October 7.
But pressure has been mounting on Netanyahu to limit civilian casualties, particularly in Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah.
Israel had “committed” to evacuate significant parts of Rafah before “going and eliminating the rest of Hamas,” Biden added.
But overall, Biden warned that the “only way for Israel to ultimately survive” was to reach a deal that provides “peace and security to Israelis and Palestinians.”
Biden commented in New York after taping an appearance on Meyers’ NBC show ‘Late Night’ at New York City’s Rockefeller Center, which was guarded by protesters calling for a ceasefire.
Amid rising tensions with Netanyahu, Biden told Meyers that if Israel continues with its “incredibly conservative government that it has… they’re going to lose support around the world.”
Biden’s comments come after his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday that representatives of several parties – although not from Gaza’s ruler Hamas – met in Paris over the weekend and reached an understanding. on the “basic contours” of a temporary ceasefire.
Negotiations were still ongoing in Qatar on Tuesday to hammer out the details of the deal. A senior Egyptian official has said the draft ceasefire agreement includes the release of up to 40 women and elderly hostages in exchange for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women, minors and elderly people.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said the proposed six-week pause in fighting would include allowing hundreds of trucks to bring desperately needed aid to Gaza every day, including to the hardest-hit north.
Under the proposed ceasefire, Gaza hospitals and bakeries would be repaired and 500 aid trucks would enter the enclave each day, the source said.
Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 29,782 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The war broke out after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that killed 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to a tally of official figures by the AFP news agency. The militants also took around 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Biden’s comments came hours before the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched a salvo of rockets at an Israeli air control base on Tuesday in retaliation for deadly Israeli strikes in eastern Lebanon one day. before.
As the situation has deteriorated in Gaza, from where Hamas launched its attack on October 7, fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East have also increased.
Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged fire almost daily with the Israeli army since the Gaza war broke out in October, but attacks have largely been restricted to the border area.
Hezbollah said it targeted the “Meron air control base… with a large salvo of rockets from several launchers.” He said the rocket fire was in response to Israel’s first attacks in the war in eastern Lebanon.
Palestinian men collect wood near a building destroyed during Israeli strikes in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, February 26, 2024.
An Israeli tank returns from the southern Gaza Strip, southern Israel, on February 26, 2024.
Missiles are launched from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel, seen from the Israeli side of the border, on February 26, 2024.
Israel attacked Hezbollah targets near the city of Baalbek, killing two of its fighters, security sources said. The Israeli military said it attacked Hezbollah’s air defenses after the group shot down one of its drones.
In retaliation, Hezbollah already fired 60 rockets at an Israeli base in the annexed Golah Heights on Monday.
Cross-border exchanges since October have killed at least 284 people on the Lebanese side, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 44 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli military.