‘Time to close deal,’ Biden tells Netanyahu
US President Joe Biden has reportedly talked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address underway efforts at conclusion of a truce deal between the occupying regime and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
Biden and Netanyahu exchanged remarks during a telephone conversation, a White House official said, according to a Thursday report by American news website Axios.
"It is time to close the deal" aimed at enabling release of Israeli captives and reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the official said, citing the conversation.
The regime has been waging a war against Gaza since October, when the coastal sliver’s resistance movements took hundreds captive during a surprise retaliatory operation against the occupied territories. The war has so far claimed the lives of more than 38,000 Palestinians, most of them women, children, and adolescents.
A seven-day truce, mediated by Egypt and Qatar in November, saw Hamas releasing 105 of the captives for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas says another truce deal has to end the war, bring about complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and involve a genuine captive/prisoner exchange deal.
The regime, however, says it will accept only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas is “eradicated.”
‘Biden bidding to score foreign policy achievement after debate debacle’
Still addressing Biden’s phone call with Netanyahu, Axios noted that a potential agreement “would be a huge foreign policy accomplishment for Biden, who is facing intense criticism after the presidential debate in June.”
During the first round of debates between Biden and Republican contender Donald Trump last week, the former seemed to lose his chain of thought at several points, raising serious concerns among his fellow Democrats, friends, and family members about the 81-year-old's health and mental aptitude.
Ever since the debate, Biden has been facing mounting pressure from those who believe that the US president had to withdraw from the race due to his likely inability to carry out another four-year term.
Israeli obduracy
Responding to Biden, Netanyahu said he had decided to send a delegation to continue truce negotiations, the report said.
The Israeli premier, however, also said of "Israel's commitment to ending the war only after all of its goals have been achieved."
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