US National Security Adviser: Israel has expressed readiness to conclude a truce and prisoner exchange agreement in Gaza
A senior White House official said Monday that Israel has expressed its willingness to agree to the ceasefire agreement and release the hostages announced by US President Joe Biden, and the ball is in Hamas’ court.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s comments came despite growing skepticism about the plan, which Biden described as an Israeli initiative but received mixed reactions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Sullivan told the Global Impact Forum in Washington, “We’ve seen again a willingness by Israel over the weekend to move forward and make an agreement”.
“All those people who have called for a ceasefire all this time, they have to turn their eyes to Hamas this week and say, it’s time to sit down at the table and make this deal”.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “If the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, decides that he is safe in a tunnel and that this proposal is not in his interest because he feels safe, this is an assessment he can make… But I think it’s very clear that it is in the interest of the Palestinian people,” he said, adding that it was almost identical to the proposal Hamas made a few weeks ago, expressing hope that Hamas wouldn’t change its position.
Sullivan, who has made a series of visits to the Middle East since Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7 and the start of the war, said the deal would be the best thing for Gazans, Israel and the United States.
Biden on Friday announced what he called a three-phase Israeli plan that would end the war, secure the release of all hostages and rebuild the devastated Palestinian enclave without Hamas in power.
But Netanyahu was quick to assert that Israel would go on with the war until it achieved all its goals, including ending Hamas as a military and political power.
An Israeli government spokesman added Monday that the prime minister considered Biden’s plan incomplete.
Hamas said Friday it viewed Biden’s outline positively but has made no official comment since.
The White House stressed Monday that the peace plan was an Israeli plan that Washington didn’t formulate to pressure its main ally in the Middle East.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, “It’s an Israeli proposal… It’s a proposal that we and them have worked on through intensive diplomacy”.
He added that Biden had informed Israel in advance that he would make the announcement.
“The president felt it was important to announce them so that the whole world could see them,” Kirby said.
While acknowledging divisions within the Israeli government, the US argues that “the endless conflict in Gaza, in search of some idea for total victory, won’t make Israel safer,” according to Matthew Miller, who said Hamas incredibly diminished during the eight months of the war, after many of its fighters were killed and its weapons and underground weapons factories were destroyed.
