Michael Hernandez
12 June 2024•Update: 12 June 2024
WASHINGTON
The White House struck a more receptive tone to Hamas' official response to a Gaza cease-fire agreement Wednesday after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said some of the Palestinian group's changes were "unworkable."
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said "many" of Hamas' proposed changes to the agreement "are minor and not unanticipated," but acknowledged some revisions "differ more substantively from what was outlined in the UN Security Council resolution" that endorsed the deal Monday.
"The United States will now work with the mediators, specifically Egypt and Qatar, to bridge final gaps consistent with the president's May 30 speech, and with the contents of the UN Security Council resolution," Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One.
"Our aim is to bring this process to a conclusion. Our view is that the time for haggling is over, it's time for a cease-fire to begin, and for the hostages to come home," he added.
US President Joe Biden announced a three-phase plan on May 31 for a permanent end to hostilities in Gaza, the reconstruction of the coastal enclave and the release of all hostages. The comprehensive roadmap, he said, was offered by Israel, which has not fully supported it publicly.
The first phase, which would last six weeks, would include a complete cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from population centers. An unspecified number of hostages would also be released, including women, the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, which Biden said at the time would number in the hundreds.
Palestinian civilians would also be allowed to return to their homes in all areas of Gaza, including in the north where Israel has placed long-standing restrictions, and Biden said humanitarian assistance would significantly increase to include 600 trucks crossing into Gaza daily.
Negotiations would continue on outstanding issues, including what one senior Biden administration official said would be the exact ratio of Palestinian prisoners that would be freed in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.
If an agreement is not reached within the first 42 days, the cease-fire would be allowed to remain in force, so long as negotiations remained ongoing, until phase two is reached.
During that period, all remaining living hostages, including male Israeli military personnel, would be freed and Israel would fully withdraw from Gaza.
The final phase would see reconstruction begin in Gaza where Israel has razed wide swathes of the coastal territory, and the remains of any dead hostages would be handed over. Reconstruction is estimated by the Biden administration to take up to five years.
Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued sweeping offensive on Gaza. An Oct. 7 attack led by Hamas that precipitated the current war killed less than 1,200 people.
Nearly 37,200 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and more than 84,800 others have been injured, according to local health authorities.
More than eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
