Yesterday evening, Thursday evening, outgoing US President Joe Biden spoke about making “real progress” towards reaching a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, and conducting an exchange of prisoners and detainees, at a time when negotiators continue to seek to reach an agreement between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement. Palestinian (Hamas).
“We are making some real progress,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “I met with the negotiators today.” He added, “I still hope that we can conduct an exchange. Hamas is currently standing in the way of this exchange, but I believe that we may be able to accomplish this. We need to accomplish it.”
Meanwhile, yesterday, Thursday, US President-elect Donald Trump’s team continued its tireless efforts within the talks aimed at reaching an agreement regarding the detainees and a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Stephen Witkoff, spoke of “close and unusual cooperation” with the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden, and said in statements to Israeli Channel 12 that reaching a deal is “the most important matter” for Trump before his inauguration ceremony on the 20th of this month.
He added that Trump “personally directed him to exert maximum pressure to move forward with the agreement.” He reiterated that “the repercussions will be very serious if the detainees in Gaza are not released.”
Witkoff did not reveal what these repercussions were, considering that the ambiguity was deliberate and part of the pressure exerted by the United States to conclude the deal, but he explained that the president-elect asked him to work and pressure to reach an exchange deal, and that he preferred the diplomatic option.
Israeli Channel 12 quoted unnamed American sources as saying that officials in the Biden administration confirmed that “there is complete coordination between the two parties, as Pratt McGurk, Biden’s representative, has remained in constant contact with Witkoff.”
According to the channel, a development was noted in the talks when Hamas agreed to accept the list of 34 detainees presented by Israel, and expressed its willingness to release those alive from the list, including men under the age of 50 who were defined as being in a humanitarian situation.
In this context, NBC News reported, citing White House officials, that the Biden administration informed McGurk of the progress made regarding the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
The Walla website quoted an informed source as saying that Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer met with Witkoff in Florida and discussed with him the possible deal to exchange detainees. The source added that Witkopf is expected to head to Doha to join the talks.
Families of prisoners
For their part, representatives of the families of Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip said that the only way to return the detainees is only through an agreement between the Israeli occupation and the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” calling for the signing of this agreement.
Representatives of the families of the prisoners added, in a press conference in Tel Aviv, that many were killed as a result of military pressure in the Gaza Strip, which endangers the lives of the detainees, pointing out that the Israeli government is responsible for the lives of the detainees, not the Hamas movement.
They pointed out that the exchange deal is what will return the remaining prisoners alive from Gaza, calling on world leaders to intervene in order to conclude the exchange deal and return all detainees.
More than once, the prisoner exchange negotiations conducted with Qatari-Egyptian-American mediation have faltered as a result of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing control over the Philadelphia border axis between Gaza and Egypt, and the Rafah crossing, and preventing the return of Palestinian faction fighters to northern Gaza by searching the returnees through the Netzarim corridor. The middle of the sector.
On the other hand, Hamas insists on a complete withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip and a complete cessation of the war, in order to accept any agreement.
Tel Aviv holds more than 10,300 Palestinians in its prisons, while it estimates that there are 100 Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip, while Hamas announced the killing of dozens of its prisoners in random Israeli raids.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with American support, has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 155,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.