US President Joe Biden Photo: Sarah Silbiger/Reuters
US President Joe Biden has said that a truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas is close to being concluded. He said this during a speech at the US State Department on Monday, stressing that his administration is actively working to reach an agreement, AFPreports.
“We are on the verge of implementing the proposal that we presented in detail several months ago,” Biden said.
Mediation and negotiation
Biden noted that he would soon discuss the situation with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, after having already held conversations with Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Egypt and Qatar are the key mediators in the negotiations aimed at releasing the 94 hostages held in the Gaza Strip and ending the hostilities.
Optimistic US forecasts
Earlier, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that a deal could be concluded as early as this week.
“The positions of the parties have significantly converged on the most important issues,” he stressed, adding that the main topics of the talks are the exchange of prisoners, the withdrawal of the Israeli military and the increase of humanitarian aid.
Sullivan also stressed that Israel had achieved its main military objectives in the Gaza Strip, and that Hamas had suffered significant losses.
Biden stressed that his team is closely coordinating its actions with the team of President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office on 20 January.
