Biden Accuses Hamas of ‘Backing Away’ from Gaza Deal

US President Joe Biden speaks to the media after the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, US August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Craig Hudson
US President Joe Biden speaks to the media after the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, US August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Craig Hudson
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Biden Accuses Hamas of ‘Backing Away’ from Gaza Deal

US President Joe Biden speaks to the media after the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, US August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Craig Hudson
US President Joe Biden speaks to the media after the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, US August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Craig Hudson

US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Hamas was “backing away” from a deal with Israel to agree on a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
“It’s still in play, but you can’t predict,” he said as he prepared to leave Chicago after a keynote address to the Democratic National Convention.
“Israel says they can work it out... Hamas is now backing away.”
The United States, Egypt and Qatar are trying to mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,139 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas's attack, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.



Egypt’s Sisi, in Meeting with Blinken, Warns of Risk of Gaza War Expanding Regionally 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in El-Alamein on August 20, 2024. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in El-Alamein on August 20, 2024. (AFP)
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Egypt’s Sisi, in Meeting with Blinken, Warns of Risk of Gaza War Expanding Regionally 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in El-Alamein on August 20, 2024. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in El-Alamein on August 20, 2024. (AFP)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned on Tuesday of the risk of the Gaza war expanding regionally in a way "difficult to imagine" during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Egyptian presidency said. 

Blinken was in Cairo pushing for areas of possible progress on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal in talks planned for later this week, with major areas of dispute left unresolved.  

Blinken arrived in Egypt from Tel Aviv, where he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a US "bridging proposal" aimed at narrowing the gaps between the two sides after talks last week paused without a breakthrough. He urged Hamas to also accept the proposal as the basis for more talks. 

The Palestinian group has not definitively rejected the proposal, but has said it backtracks from areas previously agreed and has accused Israel and its US ally of spinning out the negotiations process in bad faith. 

In Egypt, Blinken was meeting Sisi, whose country has been helping mediate the on-off Gaza talks for months along with the US and Qatar. 

At stake is the fate of tiny, crowded Gaza, where Israel's military campaign has killed more than 40,000 people since October according to Palestinian health authorities, and of the remaining hostages being held there. 

The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. 

On Tuesday, Israel's military said it had recovered the bodies of six hostages from southern Gaza, adding that 109 hostages remained in the Palestinian territory, of whom Israel around a third are believed already to be dead. 

In Gaza, Israeli forces battled Hamas-led fighters in central and southern areas, and Palestinian health authorities said at least 12 people had been killed early on Tuesday in Israeli strikes, including on a school housing displaced people. 

Israel's military said it had struck militants in a Hamas center embedded in the school. 

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said on Tuesday it was still waiting for polio vaccines to arrive after the disease was discovered in the territory, where most people now live in tents or shelters without proper sanitation. It echoed a call by the UN last week for a ceasefire to allow the vaccination campaign. 

PROPOSAL 

Blinken has called the latest push for a deal "probably the best, possibly the last opportunity", and said his meeting with Netanyahu was constructive, adding it was incumbent on Hamas to accept the bridging proposal. 

US officials have not spelled out what is in the proposal or how it differs from previous versions. "There are questions of implementation and making sure that it's clearly understood what each side will do to carry out its commitments," Blinken said on Monday. 

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan criticized the latest developments, saying the US bridging proposal that Netanyahu accepted raised ambiguities because it was different from what the group had previously agreed. 

Months of on-off talks have circled the same issues, with Israel saying the war can only end with the destruction of Hamas as a military and political force and Hamas saying it will only accept a permanent, not temporary, ceasefire. 

There are disagreements over Israel's continued military presence inside Gaza, particularly along the border with Egypt, the free movement of Palestinians inside the territory, and the identity and number of prisoners to be freed in a swap. 

Egypt is particularly focused on a security mechanism for the Philadelphi Corridor, the narrow border strip between Egypt and Gaza that Israeli forces seized in May. 

Both Hamas and Egypt are opposed to Israel keeping troops there, but Netanyahu has said they are needed on the border to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza. 

Egyptian security sources said the US has proposed an international presence in the area, a suggestion the sources said could be acceptable to Cairo if it was limited to a maximum of six months.