U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he was close to presenting a final proposal for a deal to release hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza and said he did not think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was doing enough to secure such an agreement.
Asked whether he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a hostage deal, Biden said "No." He did not elaborate.
Senior officials in Jerusalem said they were perplexed over why the president pressured Netanyahu to agree to the deal and not Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. They said the government approved the proposal on May 31 and later approved the American proposal to bridge gaps in the negotiation on August 16.
"The president's comments are especially dangerous when they are made just a few days after Hamas executed six Israeli hostages, among them an American citizen."
Biden and Vice President Harris met in the White House Situation Room with the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team, the White House said. "President Biden expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder, and reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable." The president and vice president received an update from the U.S. negotiation team on the status of the bridging proposal outlined by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt. "They discussed next steps in the ongoing effort to secure the release of hostages, including continuing consultations with co-mediators Qatar and Egypt," the statement read.
Biden was speaking to reporters at the White House after the IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages, including 23-year-old American Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, from a tunnel in Gaza with gunshot wounds to their head and other areas.
Asked if he was planning to present a final hostage deal to both sides this week, Biden said: "We're very close to that."
The latest hostage deaths sparked more criticism of the Biden administration's Gaza ceasefire strategy in the midst of the U.S. presidential campaign and ratcheted up pressure on Netanyahu from Israelis to bring the remaining hostages home.
2 View gallery
From top left: Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat and Almog Sarusi
(Photo: Courtesy)
Biden's fresh criticism of Netanyahu comes as he and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has replaced the president at the top of the Democratic ticket for the Nov. 5 election, face increased calls for decisive action to end the nearly 11-month-old war in Gaza.
The war has sown divisions among Democrats, with many progressives pressing Biden to restrict or at least place conditions on U.S. weapons supplies to Israel, Washington's chief Middle East ally.