US President Joe Biden, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, called for a ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian group Hamas as soon as possible, the White House press office said.
Their call followed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s whirlwind tour of the Middle East, which ended on Tuesday without an agreement between Israel and Hamas militants on a truce in the Palestinian enclave.
Negotiators, who have been trying for months to broker a ceasefire agreement, plan to meet in Cairo in the coming days.
“The President emphasised the urgency of completing a ceasefire and hostage release deal and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles,” the White House said in a statement about the conversation.
The statement also said Biden and Netanyahu also discussed US efforts to support Israel “against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, including the ongoing defensive deployment of US troops.”
Iran has vowed to avenge the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Julyc31, which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind the assassination.
The US ordered the dispatch of a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and ordered an accelerated deployment of the Abraham Lincoln strike group to the region to be ready to support Israel’s defence.
Blinken and mediators from Egypt and Qatar are pinning their hopes on an American “interim proposal” designed to narrow the gap between the two sides in the 10-month Gaza war.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who will formally accept the nomination for the Democratic presidential candidate in Chicago on Thursday for the November 5 election, also joined the conversation.
Biden was expected to press Netanyahu to soften Israel’s new demand that it be allowed to keep troops along the land corridor between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, a US official said before the call.
Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday denied an Israeli television report that the country had agreed to withdraw its troops from the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5 kilometre (nine-mile) stretch of land along the coastal enclave’s southern border with Egypt.
Reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is one of Biden’s top priorities. A senior US official on Friday described the talks as close to a deal, but a final agreement has been excruciatingly elusive.
In talks to end the 10-month war, Hamas is seeking a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, including the Philadelphi corridor.
Israel wants to retain control of the corridor, which it seized in late May by destroying dozens of tunnels beneath it that it says served to smuggle weapons to Gaza militant groups.
