US President Joe Biden yesterday said Israel had proposed a fresh Gaza ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, and called on Hamas to agree to the new offer, saying it was the best way to end the conflict.
“It’s time for this war to end and for the day after to begin,” said Biden, who is under election-year pressure to stop the Gaza conflict, now in its eighth month.
Talks mediated by Egypt, Qatar and others to arrange a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war have repeatedly stalled, with both sides blaming the other for the lack of progress.
This proposal comes after weeks of Israeli incursions into Rafah, and new pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government at home and abroad over the deaths in Gaza and the continued captivity of the hostages.
Netanyahu’s office said that Israel had authorised negotiators to present a Gaza truce deal after Biden revealed the ceasefire plan.
It also comes a day after the Democratic president’s Republican rival for president, Donald Trump, was convicted of 34 felony charges, highlighting the sharp contrast between the two candidates.
The new proposal Biden laid out is made up of three phases, and breaks from previous proposals because a ceasefire would continue as the parties move through all three.
During the first phase, a ceasefire lasting for six weeks, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza population centres, and hostages, including the elderly and women, would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian civilians would return to Gaza, including northern Gaza, and 600 trucks would bring humanitarian aid into Gaza each day, Biden said.
In the second phase, Hamas and Israel would negotiate terms of a permanent end to hostilities. “The ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue,” the president said, a new development.
The third phase would include a major reconstruction plan for Gaza.
The proposal has been relayed to Hamas by Qatar, Biden said.
The president called on those in Israel who were pushing for “indefinite” war to change their minds.
“I know there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan. And will call for the war to continue indefinitely. Some are even in the government coalition. They’ve made it clear. They want to occupy Gaza. They want to keep fighting for years and hostages are not a priority for them. Well, I’ve urged leadership in Israel to stand behind this deal, despite whatever pressure comes,” Biden said.
“As someone who’s had a lifelong commitment to Israel, as the only American president who has ever gone to Israel at a time of war, as someone who just sent the US forces to directly defend Israel when it was attacked by Iran, I ask you to take a step back, think what will happen if this moment is lost,” he said. “We can’t lose this moment.”
A senior US official told reporters that Israel was able to make the new offer because of recent battleground gains.
“There is now really a road map to the end of the crisis. It is a detailed four-and-half-page agreement,” the official said. “It has been negotiated, again, in painstaking detail. And what’s on the table now is really kind of an endgame to the process.”
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