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Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani met Steve Witkoff, Trump’s possible Middle East envoy and Brett McGurk, the current US envoy to the Middle East.
People displaced by conflict sheltering at a school queue to fill up their water containers from a cistern in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. (IMAGE: AFP)
A Gaza truce and hostage release deal is close and could be finalized in the final week of US President Joe Biden’s term, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday.
“We are close to a deal, and it can get done this week. I’m not making a promise or prediction, but it is there for the taking, and we are going to work to make it happen,” Sullivan told reporters.
Meanwhile, Qatar’s ruler met on Monday with the Middle East envoys for the incoming and outgoing US administrations, his office said in a statement.
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani met with Steve Witkoff, US President-elect Donald Trump’s expected Middle East envoy, and Brett McGurk, the incumbent Joe Biden’s envoy for the region, the statement said. It added they “reviewed developments in the Gaza Strip… as well as the latest developments in the ceasefire negotiations”.
Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and called the ruler of mediator Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, on Monday as negotiations intensified.
The US leader has been pushing to get a deal between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas before he leaves office on January 20 and hands over to Donald Trump.
Sullivan said he was more hopeful of a deal now than he was on previous occasions since the Gaza war broke out following Hamas’s October 6, 2023 attack on Israel.
“It’s because the gaps have fundamentally narrowed down,” said Sullivan, Biden’s top national security official.
Progress had been made on issues including the formula for the exchange of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and on how Israel’s forces would be “postured” in Gaza, he said.
Sullivan credited the fact that Israel had achieved its military objectives in Gaza, while Hamas has suffered “catastrophic losses”.
“When you put those two factors together, we believe that the time is right to get a deal and to have to close,” Sullivan said.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
- Location :
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)