Biden says Israel has offered a new ‘roadmap’ to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza

CNN
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President Joe Biden announced Friday that Israel has offered a “comprehensive new proposal” that provides a “roadmap” to a ceasefire in the war with Hamas in Gaza and the release of all hostages held by the terror group.

He said the proposal was transmitted by Qatar to Hamas and the first phase would last six weeks and include a “full and complete ceasefire with withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza” and “release of a number of hostages including women, the elderly, the wounded in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.”

Israel this week presented mediators with new ideas on the hostage and ceasefire talks, a diplomatic source familiar with the negotiations said on Tuesday, without expanding on what the new ideas were.

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas on securing the hostages’ release were paused three weeks ago without a deal after the sides could not come to an agreement on some of the terms.

On Thursday, Hamas said it had informed mediators that they are “prepared to reach a comprehensive agreement” that includes a full hostage and prisoner exchange deal if Israel stops its war in Gaza.

A statement from the group said while it had shown “flexibility and positivity in dealing with the efforts of the mediators throughout all previous rounds of indirect negotiations.” Israel, Hamas said, had used the months of ongoing talks as a cover to continue its war in Gaza.

“Hamas and the Palestinian factions will not accept being part of this policy of continuous negotiations in the face of aggression, killing, siege, starvation, and genocide of our people,” the Hamas statement said.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that the war must continue until Hamas is completely destroyed.

The president, who returned to the White House from his beach home in Delaware earlier in the morning, hds avoided commenting on the situation in Israel for several days.

Earlier on Friday, Israel said its forces have entered central Rafah, the city in southern Gaza that Biden has warned should not be the target of a major ground offensive.

The White House called images from the disaster “heartbreaking” but said the incident had not crossed Biden’s red line for withholding some US weapons shipments to Israel.

Biden will be speaking as negotiations continue to secure the release of hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. Israel recently issued a new proposal to secure the hostages’ release.

The president told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an interview this month that he would limit some US arms to Israel if the country’s military “go into Rafah.”

But he has remained vague about how he will quantify such a decision, leading to frustrations and a degree of confusion over his stance. Many Democrats, along with foreign leaders who the US counts as allies, say Israel’s actions clearly cross a red line – if not Biden’s, then their own and those of international law.

White House officials have sought this week to explain Biden’s stance, suggesting his barometer for changing policy would be a “major ground invasion” of the city.

A major ground invasion, national security spokesman John Kirby has said, would be obvious should it begin: “Lots of units of tens of thousands of troops or thousands of troops moving in a coordinated set of maneuvers against a wide variety of targets on the ground in a massive way. That’s a major ground operation. Pretty simple.”

This story is breaking and will be updated.