The United States has allegedly excluded Israel while negotiating directly with Hamas to reach a hostage release deal.
Biden administration officials discussed the possibility of reaching a unilateral deal with the terrorist group to free five Americans held hostage in Gaza, two senior US government sources said. NBC.
Talks were reported to take place through Qatari interlocutors, but only if current ceasefire and hostage negotiations involving Israel fail.
The contingency plan should guarantee the release of the five American-Israeli hostages held in Gaza: Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Neutra and Keith Siegel.
The parents of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin said in a statement that they “welcome any negotiations that lead to the return home of our loved ones who have been in captivity for more than eight months.”
Biden administration officials discussed the possibility of reaching a unilateral deal with the terrorist group to release five Americans held hostage in Gaza, two senior US government sources told NBC (pictured: President Joe Biden).
A poster of American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants after the deadly Oct. 7, is placed at a bus station near the American consulate in Jerusalem on June 10, 2024.
The parents of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin said in a statement that they “welcome any negotiations that lead to the return home of our loved ones who have been in captivity for more than eight months” (pictured: Rachel Goldberg-Polin ).
Relatives of Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian movement Hamas carry a photograph of Omer Neutra, 22, at Kibbutz Nirim along the fence on the Gaza border on January 11, 2024.
They added: “We pray that all families with hostages are reunited with their loved ones imminently.”
Hamas is also believed to have taken the bodies of three other Americans during its Oct. 7 attack, whose remains the United States hopes to secure with a unilateral deal.
It is not known what the United States would offer Hamas in return, but one of the officials told NBC that Israel could be forced to accept a ceasefire agreement if the United States excluded it from its negotiation with the terrorist group.
The White House has not commented on the news.
This comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was urging Middle East leaders to pressure Hamas to say yes to a ceasefire proposal to stop the fighting in Gaza.
Blinken said Hamas was the lone outlier in not accepting the proposal for a three-phase deal involving the release of hostages and talks to end the fighting, which he said Israel had agreed to.
“My message to governments across the region, to people across the region, is that if you want a ceasefire, put pressure on Hamas to say yes,” Blinken told reporters before leaving Egypt to visit Israel during its trip to the Middle East.
A senior Hamas official told Reuters that Blinken’s comments on the Gaza ceasefire were “biased toward Israel.”
Blinken met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo before traveling to Israel, where he will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Blinken is on his eighth visit to the region since Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, triggering the bloodiest episode in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Families of Americans held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, from left, Jonathan Dekel-Chan, Ruby Chen, Ronen Neutra and Orna Neutra, are interviewed by the Associated Press, Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in Washington.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters after his meeting with the Egyptian president at Cairo airport on June 10, 2024.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, June 10, 2024.
The top US diplomat said he would also discuss plans for governance and reconstruction in Gaza after the conflict during his trip, which will also see him meet with regional leaders in Jordan and Qatar.
The visit comes after President Biden on May 31 outlined a three-phase ceasefire proposal by Israel that provides for a permanent end to hostilities, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and the reconstruction of Loop.
Blinken said Egyptian officials had been in communication with Hamas just hours ago.
There was a sense of urgency to get a response from Hamas about the deal, he said, but he declined to give more details about their talks.
Ceasefire talks have intensified since Biden’s speech and CIA Director William Burns met with senior officials from mediators Qatar and Egypt on Wednesday in Doha to discuss the plan.
Biden has repeatedly stated that ceasefires were close in recent months, but in November there was only a week-long truce.
The Hamas attack on October 7 killed 1,200 people and took about 250 more hostage, according to Israeli counts.
In response, Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry said in its update on Sunday, and reduced the enclave to a wasteland.
Israeli forces rescued four hostages held by Hamas since October in a raid in Gaza on Saturday, during which 274 Palestinians were killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Blinken did not respond to a question about whether the raid had worsened hopes for a deal.
“Ultimately, I cannot put myself – none of us can put myself – in the mind of Hamas or its leaders,” Blinken said. “So we don’t know what the response will be.”