Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The Biden administration says it still hopes to broker a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in its final two weeks in the White House, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday.
Blinken, on a diplomatic trip to South Korea, said the past few weeks had seen “re-intensified engagement, including by Hamas,” but there was still no agreement on final terms.
“What I can tell you is this: We really want to get this to the finish line in the next two weeks, the time we have left. And we’re going to work every minute of every day of these two weeks to try to make that happen,” he said.
President-elect Trump has warned Hamas to “hell to pay” if hostages taken on October 7, 2023 are not released by his inauguration on January 20.
Hamas is estimated to have around 100 people it kidnapped in southern Israel during its terror attack, although most of those people are believed to have died. Among those who have not yet been released are seven Americans. In late November, Hamas released a video of 21-year-old Israeli-American Edan Alexander’s attempted life.
Israel has subsequently ravaged the Gaza Strip in its war against Hamas over the past 15 months, with tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed and the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. on allegations of war crimes.
The United States has pushed for a ceasefire as the best way to increase humanitarian aid deliveries to Palestinians in the Strip and stop the struggle to provide aid to the besieged. But it has also continued to supply Israel with billions of dollars worth of weapons to prosecute its war.
In one New York Times interview published Friday, Blinken said Hamas was the main obstacle to a deal.
“What we have seen time and time again is that Hamas does not conclude a deal that it should have concluded.”
Netanyahu has also been accused of changing the terms of a potential deal and has faced intense pressure at home not to secure the release of the hostages.
Israeli officials are in Doha, Qatar, for indirect talks on a deal with an Israeli official. telling the Times of Israel that a major obstacle remains for Hamas to provide the number and names of hostages to be released in a first round.
