US has been close to a cease-fire in Gaza before but has not gotten across finish line, top US aide tells Bloomberg
There is a possibility that a cease-fire for the embattled Gaza Strip could be reached this week, said the White House national security advisor on Monday.
"There is a distinct possibility that we can get this deal done this week before President Biden leaves office," Jake Sullivan told Bloomberg, referring to next Monday, when Biden's successor is due to be sworn in.
Sullivan reiterated that the US has been close to a cease-fire before but has not gotten across the finish line.
"So I can't make any promises or predictions," said Sullivan, adding that he was on the phone with Brett McGurk, President Joe Biden's Middle East adviser, and also spoke with Qatar's premier and one of the key Israeli negotiators.
"And there is a general sense that this is moving in the right direction," he said.
However, he cautioned that how Palestinian group Hamas will respond to a final agreement remains unknown.
"Can we get to a final agreement, and then can we begin implementing in the coming days, it's there for the taking. So the question is, now, can we all collectively seize the moment and make this happen?" said Sullivan.
Later addressing reporters at the White House, Sullivan said the areas of disagreement, which he called "gaps," between Hamas and Israel "have fundamentally narrowed on the key issues, the formulas over prisoner exchanges, the formulas over the details of how Israel's forces will be postured in their pull back in the Gaza Strip, the details over how to conduct the humanitarian surge in the wake of the guns going silent."
"These things now, on paper, the gaps between the two sides are slowly getting removed, one by one, and issues are closing," he said.
Last week, Biden told reporters that “some progress” is being made in prisoner exchange talks. The president said he hopes his administration can broker such a deal before it ends on Jan. 20.
The prisoner swap and cease-fire talks, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the US, have been interrupted several times due to new conditions imposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli opposition and families of captives accuse Netanyahu of obstructing efforts to reach a Gaza cease-fire and prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.
The Israeli army has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 46,500 victims, most of them women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
