US says Gaza deal 'can get done this week'
World
Jake Sullivan said A Gaza truce and hostage release deal is close.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A Gaza truce and hostage release deal is close and could be finalized in the final week of US President Joe Biden's term, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday.
"We are close to a deal, and it can get done this week. I'm not making a promise or prediction, but it is there for the taking, and we are going to work to make it happen," Sullivan told reporters.
Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and called the ruler of mediator Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, on Monday as negotiations intensified.
The US leader has been pushing to get a deal between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas before he leaves office on January 20 and hands over to Donald Trump.
Sullivan said he was more hopeful of a deal now than he was on previous occasions since the Gaza war broke out following Hamas's October 6, 2023 attack on Israel.
"It's because the gaps have fundamentally narrowed down," said Sullivan, Biden's top national security official.
Progress had been made on issues including the formula for the exchange of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and on how Israel's forces would be "postured" in Gaza, he said.
Sullivan credited the fact that Israel had achieved its military objectives in Gaza, while Hamas has suffered "catastrophic losses".
"When you put those two factors together, we believe that the time is right to get a deal and to have to close," Sullivan said.
FAR-RIGHT OPPOSITION
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, however, warned he would oppose any deal that stopped the war.
"The proposed agreement is a catastrophe for Israel's national security," Smotrich said on X. "We will not be part of a surrender deal that involves releasing dangerous terrorists, halting the war, squandering the hard-won achievements paid for in blood and abandoning many hostages still in captivity.
"Now is the time to intensify our efforts, using all available force to fully secure and cleanse the Gaza Strip," he added.
Smotrich, an outspoken member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition, has repeatedly opposed halting the war in Gaza.
His comments came amid rising calls by Israelis, particularly families of hostages held in Gaza, to reach an accord that would bring their loved ones home.
Smotrich's remarks underline the sharp divides in Netanyahu's ruling coalition over a deal.
But Netanyahu could nonetheless muster enough support to pass the deal through his cabinet, even without Smotrich.
Successive rounds of negotiations held last year repeatedly failed to produce a deal.
Among the key sticking points in the talks have been disagreements over the permanence of any ceasefire and the scale of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.
Other points of contention include the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory and the reopening of border crossings.
Netanyahu has firmly rejected a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and remains opposed to any Palestinian governance of the territory.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's attack on Oct 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
On that day, militants also took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed 46,584 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations says are reliable.
GAZA CITY POUNDED
Even as intense diplomatic efforts continued towards a truce deal, Israeli forces pounded Gaza City on Monday, killing more than 50 Palestinians, according to civilian rescuers.
"They bombed schools, homes and even gatherings of people," Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency, told AFP.
Eleven people were killed and several others injured when an Israeli strike targeted a house belonging to the Jaradah and Abu Khater families in the city's Shujaiya neighbourhood, the agency said in a statement.
The remaining casualties occurred in other strikes across Gaza City throughout the day, it added.
The Israeli military said it was looking into those reports.
"There is no room in hospitals to receive the wounded," Bassal said.
The Israeli military also suffered losses on Monday, with five of its soldiers killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the military said in a statement.
The latest deaths bring the Israeli military's losses to 408 in the Gaza military campaign since it began a ground offensive against Hamas in the Palestinian territory on Oct 27, 2023.
