Biden presses Netanyahu to close gap with Hamas on cease-fire talks

WASHINGTON — In their first meeting at the White House since he took office, US President Joe Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to work to close a cease-fire deal with Hamas to end the nine-month war in the Gaza Strip.

Biden administration officials have pressed for a negotiated halt to the Gaza war as a necessary step for defusing a series of other emerging confrontations in the region, which policymakers fear could merge into a wider Middle East war.

The US president on Wednesday was expected to pledge continued US support for Israel’s self-defense amid a spate of missile and drone attacks by Iran-armed militias in the region. Most of the militias, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, have characterized their attacks as retribution for Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza.

The two leaders were also slated to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where experts say the Israeli campaign has led to half a million people facing acute food insecurity and the death of nearly 40,000 Palestinians.

Topping the agenda for the meeting, however, was the Biden administration’s priority of continuing to facilitate indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas in order to reach a pause in the fighting in exchange for Hamas’ release of some Israeli hostages. 

What they’re saying: US officials stressed ahead of the meeting that the remaining gaps between the two warring sides are now bridgeable and that the talks have made progress over the past month.

“Both sides still have to make compromises,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday. “It’s time to end the war,” he added.

Biden announced the draft cease-fire — which he described as an Israeli proposal — in a televised speech from the White House on May 31. The three-phase plan, if implemented in full, would see the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for an end to hostilities, Biden said.

The UN Security Council passed a US-sponsored resolution last month backing the cease-fire proposal and aimed at halting the war. 

But a series of snags have prevented the finalization of a deal, as Netanyahu’s government has tacked on additional conditions and the United States has publicly rejected Hamas’ counter-proposal.

A senior Biden administration official speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday, ahead of Biden’s meeting with Netanyahu, said that deliberations have made progress in recent weeks.

“It’s a very different negotiation now than it was, say, a month ago, in which we had just some fundamental … [and] potentially unbridgeable issues,” the senior official said. “I think those have basically been resolved.”

Still, the official admitted there were hurdles ahead. “There are some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved, and I don’t want to discount the difficulty of those.”

Thursday’s meeting at the White House was the first between Netanyahu and Biden in Washington since Biden took office in January of 2021. The two previously met in Israel during a US presidential visit in the days following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, which left around 1,200 Israelis dead and resulted in 250 being taken hostage. 

US Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden endorsed as the Democratic candidate for president after announcing he would not seek reelection in November, was also slated to meet with the Israeli leader separately on Thursday. 

The White House meetings came a day after Netanyahu delivered a speech before both houses of Congress in an attempt to rally support for Israel among American lawmakers.

During the speech, which was boycotted by dozens of Democratic lawmakers, the Israeli prime minister repeatedly thanked former US President Donald Trump for his administration’s diplomatic push to convince Arab states to normalize ties with Israel as a bulwark against Iran. Referring to the president, with whom he has had a tense relationship in recent months, Netanyahu said, "President Biden and I have known each other for over 40 years. I want to thank him for half a century of friendship with Israel and for being, as he says, 'a proud Zionist.'”

During his address to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu also demanded the Biden administration fast-track its weapons transfers to Israel. 

“Fast-tracking US military aid can dramatically expedite an end to the war in Gaza and help prevent a broader war in the Middle East," he said, adding, "Give us the tools faster, and will finish the job faster.”

The Pentagon’s top general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, denied on Thursday that the United States was holding up arms shipments to Israel, other than a single shipment of 2,000-lb. bombs held up by the White House earlier this year over concerns that Israeli warplanes would use them in areas densely populated with civilians.

“No change in policy at this time,” Kirby replied when asked whether the administration plans to resume the bomb transfer. "They're still getting the tools, the capabilities and the weapons that they need for the fight,” Kirby said.

“Faster delivery of US weapons to Israel will not enable faster end to [the] Gaza war. There is no end to this war if the ends are 'total victory' or only defined in military terms,” the Pentagon’s former top Middle East policy official, Dana Stroul, wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

What’s next: In his speech to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu made little mention of the cease-fire proposal on the table. Israeli officials have said they will send a delegation to Doha next week to further the talks.

Know more: There are concerns in Washington that Netanyahu may be playing for time by drawing out the cease-fire negotiations for domestic political reasons. 

Netanyahu was set to meet with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Friday. 

Kirby on Thursday said he did not believe that Biden's decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race would affect his administration's chance of convincing the two sides to agree to a cease-fire.