Negotiators seeking a Gaza ceasefire deal are working on three paragraphs that concern the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israelis who’ve been detained by Hamas militants, the White House said Wednesday.
Those three paragraphs are part of an 18-paragraph deal. Fourteen of the sections are finalized and one involves a technical fix, leaving three parts in dispute, according to a senior administration official.
Besides the prisoner-hostage exchange, negotiators are debating the level of Israeli presence in an area of Gaza known as the Philadelphi corridor.
For weeks, U.S. negotiators have been working with Egypt and Qatar to secure the release of hostages taken by Palestinian militants in Hamas on Oct. 7.
The administration provided a media update on the talks amid cross-claims about what’s holding up the deal and the horrific murders of six hostages by Hamas over the weekend, which the senior administration official called “outrageous” and “horrific.”
The deaths meant there were fewer names on the exchange list, and the event “changed the character of the discussion,” the official said. “This cannot be lost in who we are dealing with. We’re dealing with a terrorist group,” the official said.
The administration pushed back on Hamas’s claims that it agreed to a deal weeks ago, saying they seemed to be referring to the 14 paragraphs that had been agreed to.
President Biden also appears to be running out of patience with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Asked Sunday if his Israeli counterpart was doing enough to secure a deal, Mr. Biden responded, flatly: “No.”
“We are not giving up. We are going to continue to push as hard as we can,” Mr. Biden said.
The deaths of the hostages over the weekend, including 23-year-old Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, sparked an unprecedented round of demonstrations in cities across Israel.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets Sunday and Monday to protest Mr. Netanyahu’s handling of the hostage crisis, which has dragged on for nearly 11 months after Hamas’ attack last fall on Israel, which killed more than 1,200 Israelis and resulted in the taking of more than 250 hostages.
Roughly 100 hostages were freed last year but more than 100 remain, enduring months of captivity.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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