WASHINGTON: US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza is unlikely before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The newspaper cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday before the report was published.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90 percent of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.
The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire but have failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.
Two obstacles have been especially difficult: Israel’s demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The United States has said a Gaza ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears the conflict could widen.
Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time Israel agreed to. As the talks hit obstacles, officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term — report
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Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term — report
- The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire in Gaza
- The US has said a ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears of a wider conflict
Palestinian technocrats who will run Gaza hold their first meeting in Cairo
- Committee made up of 15 technocrats charged with administering everyday life in the Palestinian territory
CAIRO: The Palestinian committee that will govern postwar Gaza held its first meeting in Cairo on Friday.
Formed on Wednesday as the second phase of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal came into effect, the committee is made up of 15 technocrats charged with administering everyday life in the Palestinian territory.
The meeting followed US President Donald Trump’s declaration of the formation of a Gaza “board of peace,” a key phase two element of the US-backed plan to end the war.
Members of the board will be announced shortly, Trump said, and he will chair it. “I can say with certainty that it is the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place,” he said.
The peace plan also calls for the deployment of an International Stabilisation Force to help secure Gaza and train vetted Palestinian police units.
“The ball is now in the court of the mediators, the American guarantor and the international community to empower the committee," senior Hamas leader Bassem Naim said.
The US-backed Gaza peace plan first came into force on October 10, facilitating the return of all the hostages held by Hamas and an end to the fighting between the Palestinian militant group and Israel in the besieged territory.
The plan's second phase is now underway, though clouded by ongoing allegations of aid shortages and violence. Israeli forces have killed 451 Palestinians since the ceasefire began.
