{"id":37143,"date":"2025-01-13T02:08:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T08:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=37143"},"modified":"2025-01-12T23:50:24","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T05:50:24","slug":"biden-spoke-with-netanyahu-sullivan-says-hostage-deal-very-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=37143","title":{"rendered":"Biden spoke with Netanyahu; Sullivan says hostage deal very close"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. President Joe Biden<\/a> spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said, as U.S. officials race to reach a Gaza<\/a> hostage and ceasefire deal before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden and Netanyahu discussed efforts underway to reach a deal to halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave and free the remaining hostages there, the White House said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by telephone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden \u201cstressed the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Netanyahu updated Biden on progress and on the mandate he has given his top-level security delegation now in Doha<\/a> in order to advance a hostage deal, Netanyahu said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two leaders also discussed \u201cthe fundamentally changed regional circumstances following the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening of Iran\u2019s power in the region,\u201d the White House said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d program earlier on Sunday that the parties were \u201cvery, very close\u201d to reaching a deal, but still had to get it across the finish line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Biden was getting daily updates on the talks in Doha, where Israeli and Palestinian officials have said since Thursday that some progress has been made in the indirect talks between Israel and militant group Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are still determined to use every day we have in office to get this done,\u201d Sullivan said, \u201cand we are not, by any stretch of imagination, setting this aside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said there was still a chance to reach an agreement before Biden leaves office, but that it was also possible \u201cHamas, in particular, remains intransigent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed across its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and gripped by a humanitarian crisis, and most of its population displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vice President-elect JD Vance told the \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d program in an interview taped on Saturday that he expects a deal for the release of U.S. hostages in the Middle East to be announced in the final days of the Biden administration, maybe in the last day or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President-elect Donald Trump<\/a>, a staunch supporter of Israel, has strongly backed Netanyahu\u2019s goal of destroying Hamas. He has promised to bring peace to the Middle East, but has not said how he would accomplish that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said, as U.S. officials race to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20. Biden and Netanyahu discussed efforts underway to reach a deal to halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave and free the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1169,4132,4576],"class_list":["post-37143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-biden","tag-deal","tag-netanyahu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37145,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37143\/revisions\/37145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}