Joe Biden has urged Hamas to accept a new peace deal offered by Israel, which offers a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in exchange for the release of all hostages and the long-term rebuilding of the destroyed coastline.
“It’s time to end this war and begin the next day,” Biden said, outlining a three-phase framework for an agreement he said he had presented to the Israeli government.
A senior administration official said the four-and-a-half-page proposal had been approved by the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and submitted to Hamas on Friday.
He said the first phase of the plan would last six weeks, during which a ceasefire would be implemented and Israeli forces would withdraw from all residential areas of the Gaza Strip. A “large number of hostages,” including women, elderly and injured, would be released by Hamas in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The bodies of the hostages who died will also be returned to their families and Gaza residents will be able to return to their homes throughout the strip. Crossings into the Gaza Strip will be opened to allow 600 truckloads of aid per day to be delivered, which aid agencies say is enough to feed the starving Gaza population of 2.3 million.
The six-week first phase of the ceasefire will see Israel and Hamas negotiate a second phase aimed at a permanent end to hostilities. If the two sides fail to reach an agreement within six weeks, the ceasefire will be extended as negotiations mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt continue.
The second phase, also scheduled to last about six weeks, would see Hamas release all remaining hostages, including male soldiers, Israel withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip and a permanent ceasefire be agreed to, provided Hamas keeps its commitments, administration officials said.
“This is really a defining moment,” Biden said. “Israel has made an offer. Hamas has said it wants a ceasefire. This agreement is their opportunity to prove whether they really mean it. Hamas needs to accept the agreement.”
Hamas said on Thursday it had told mediators it would not take part in further negotiations as long as Israel continued its military operation across Gaza, but a senior US official insisted that the new agreement outlined by President Biden included broadly the same conditions Hamas has been demanding, including a path to a permanent ceasefire.
The first phase of Biden’s newly announced plan was similar to one that had been negotiated for months in Qatar and Cairo but collapsed due to fundamental differences between Hamas and Israel over whether the ceasefire would be permanent.
Although the terms of the new agreement were set out by Biden, who repeatedly described it as an Israeli proposal, he made clear he recognized there would be significant resistance from the Israeli right, including the far-right wing of the ruling coalition, and he directed much of his remarks at them.
“They have made it clear they want to occupy Gaza. They want to keep fighting for years and years and hostages are not a priority for them,” Biden said. But the US president insisted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had weakened Hamas and the militant Palestinian group was no longer capable of carrying out attacks on the scale of the October 7 raid that killed some 1,200 Israelis.
U.S. officials said the deal meant Hamas could not restructure its military wing, but its future as a political force was unclear.
“I have urged the Israeli leadership to uphold this agreement, no matter what pressure it faces from the Israeli people,” the president said.
“Think about what would happen if we lost this moment,” Biden added. “If we lost this moment, [and continue] An indefinite war in pursuit of any vague notion of total victory will only mire Israel and Gaza, drain their economic, military and human resources, and further Israel’s isolation in the world.”
He said one of the outcomes of this agreement for Israel would be a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.
“Israel could be part of a regional security network to counter the Iranian threat,” Biden said.
