Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was criticized by US President Joe Biden on Monday for not doing enough to broker an agreement for the release of hostages held by the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
When asked if he thought the Israeli prime minister was going far enough on the matter by reporters at the White House, where Biden was making his way for a meeting with US negotiators, the president said, “No.”
Biden’s meeting with the hostage-release deal negotiators came in the wake of six prisoners in Gaza, one of whom was an American citizen, passing away on Saturday.
“President Biden expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder, and reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable,” a White House statement said after the meeting.
Negotiators briefed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is challenging him in November’s US presidential election, “on the status of the bridging proposal outlined by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt,” according to the statement.
Biden had stated before the meeting that a final proposal to be given to Israel and Hamas was “very close” to being negotiated.
The National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other senior US officials were present at the Situation Room briefing, according to the White House.
The United States has been promoting a hostage-prisoner exchange and ceasefire in the Gaza conflict for months, working with other mediators Egypt and Qatar.
Hamas seized 251 hostages during the October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war, 97 of whom remain in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Scores of hostages were released during a one-week truce in November.
An Israeli court on Monday ordered a halt to a strike called by the country’s largest union aimed at ramping up pressure on Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining captives.
Advocates and relatives of the hostages have demanded an immediate ceasefire and accused Netanyahu’s government of not doing enough to free the hostages.
An AFP count based on Israeli official numbers shows that 1,205 persons, largely civilians, were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack in addition to the hostages taken.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip has resulted in more than 40,786 Palestinian deaths since the start of the conflict.
The UN human rights office reports that women and children account for the majority of the dead.
