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“President Joe Biden’s administration will not allow ‘extremists,’ including Israel, to derail ceasefire negotiations in the Gaza Strip.” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
Kirby accused Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of making false statements, saying his claims that the Gaza ceasefire meant surrender to Hamas, the Palestinian group designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, or that hostages should not be exchanged for prisoners were “completely false.”
Kirby said Smotrich was misleading the Israeli people. For months, the United States and its allies have been trying to bring the parties back to the negotiating table to achieve a ceasefire in the 10-month-old Gaza war, but have repeatedly faced obstacles from Israel and Hamas.
U.S. officials see the latest proposal as the closest the parties have come since the Oct. 7 attack to agreeing to release women, the sick and the elderly held hostage by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire of at least six weeks.
“We want to make a deal. We believe it’s still possible to achieve it … but it will take leadership and compromise from both sides.” Tower Kirby.
On Thursday, the United States, Qatar and Egypt, which are mediating the talks, called on Israel and Hamas to resume ceasefire talks.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt, in a joint statement, invited the conflicting parties to resume negotiations in Doha or Cairo on August 15 “to overcome their differences and immediately begin implementing the agreement.”
Kirby said some critics, such as Smotrich, claim that the hostage trade is “capitulation to Hamas, or that hostages should not be exchanged for (Palestinian) prisoners” and that the war should continue indefinitely.
“These arguments are completely wrong,” Tower Kirby.
Israel says its goal is to destroy Hamas after militants from Gaza swept into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250. After a round of fighting in November, Israel said it still held 111 hostages in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 hostages.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and injured more than 91,700. More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million have been forced to flee their homes, crossing the tiny territory to escape the war. /REL
Posts White House: Biden won’t allow ‘extremists’ to derail Gaza talks First appeared in Ku Klux Klan.
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