‘We’re not there yet’: Biden seeks to close Israel, Hamas cease-fire deal by next week

President Biden said Friday that efforts to secure a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas are closer than they have ever been but that more work is needed, with mediators proposing a conclusion of the deal by the end of next week. 

“I don’t want to jinx anything … we’re not there yet,” the president said in remarks from the Oval Office.

“But we’re much, much closer than we were three days ago.”

Mediators from the U.S., Israel, Qatar, Egypt and Hamas concluded two days of talks in Doha, Qatar, on Friday, with a joint statement from Washington, Doha and Cairo describing the talks as serious, constructive and “conducted in a positive atmosphere.”

The U.S. will work to conclude the deal before the end of next week, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken is headed to Israel on Sunday as part of intensive diplomatic efforts to finalize the agreement. 

At the talks in Doha, the U.S. put on the table a “final bridging proposal” that a senior administration official described as a comprehensive text that provides clarification and implementation details to the broad framework of the agreement that was first put before Israel and Hamas at the end of May. 

“It has been negotiated for months, and we do believe very strongly, and there’s momentum here in this process, to work to bring this to its conclusion,” the official said in a call with reporters Friday afternoon.

The official did not provide deeper details on the provisions of the cease-fire, which are broadly understood as a phased deal that starts with a six-week halt in fighting, calls for Hamas to release hostages it kidnapped from Israel on Oct. 7 and for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The six-week cease-fire is also supposed to allow for a surge in humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the pulling back of the Israeli military from certain areas, and allow for the movement of Palestinians displaced from the north of the strip to return to their homes. 

But working-group arrangements over the course of the next week will primarily focus on the list of hostages held by Hamas and list of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the sequencing for their exchange, the official said.

“This is extremely complicated, and a large basis of the talks over the course of the last two days were about that exchange issue, which, in the nomenclature, is known as the keys,” the official said. “And there were some gaps there, and some trade space between the parties, which I think we’ve now gone a long way to bridge.”

The negotiating parties are setting up an implementation cell in Cairo with the goal of being able to conclude all the final details of the cease-fire and hostage and prisoner exchange by the end of next week. 

The senior administration official described the bridging proposal put down by the U.S. as a significant advancement on a deal where final agreement on the positions held by Israel and Hamas have yet proved to be out of reach.

“The conditions are right to do this deal, first and foremost, to get the hostages out … and save their lives,” the official said. 

“But also to bring relief to the people of Gaza. In a way, this deal is now structured, there’s really no risk to Israel’s security. In fact, I think this deal is structured in a way that enhances the security of Israel. So the elements are really there, and we think it is time to move forward.”

In the background of all this are U.S. efforts to warn Iran off of launching an attack on Israel in retaliation for the July 31 killing of a top Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, at a guest house in Tehran. 

While the Biden administration has sent significant military assets to the Middle East to help defend Israel in the event of the attack, the administration official said Iran is sending signals through mediators to the U.S. that Tehran wants to see the cease-fire proposal go into effect. 

“Iran claims to those that they are speaking with, including many of my colleagues here from Qatar, who are in touch with senior Iranian officials over the last few days as we were here, that they want to see a cease-fire in Gaza, that that is their goal,” the official said.

“They want to see de-escalation of tensions. And of course, that very much remains to be seen. And now it’s an opportunity to put the money where their mouth is, and to basically work towards the conclusion of this over the coming week.”