Netanyahu authorizes renewed hostage talks before heading to Washington
The elusive hostage deal to secure the release of the remaining 120 hostages in Gaza will be on the agenda of Netanyahu-Biden agenda.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed Sunday to dispatch an Israeli negotiating team to hostage talks on Thursday as he prepared to travel to Washington on Monday.
He is expected to meet with US President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday and to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
It will be his fourth such address to Congress, having spoken before it in 2015, 2011, and in 1996.
The White House meeting will be his first since returning to office in December 2022, but he has met Biden twice since then. Once on the sidelines of the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023 and again a month later when Biden visited the Jewish state in October after the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, in which over 1,200 people were killed and 251 seized as hostages. The elusive hostage deal to secure the release of the remaining 120 hostages in Gaza will be on the agenda of Netanyahu-Biden agenda.
On Sunday Netanyahu “held an in-depth discussion on the issue of the hostages together with the negotiation team and senior security officials,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
“Netanyahu gave instructions for a negotiation team to head out this Thursday” for further talks, the PMO said.
Renewed hopes emerging for hostage deal?
It did not specify where the talks would be held. Egypt and Qatar have been the main mediating counts for such talks, holding intense rounds of negotiations in Cairo and Doha two weeks ago.
The Biden administration has helped lead the initiative for a deal, with US President Joe Biden unveiling a three-phased proposal that would see anywhere from 18 to 33 hostages freed during the first phase in exchange for a lull in the fighting.
The US has hoped to transform that six-week lull into a permanent ceasefire.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant commended Netanyahu for dispatching a negotiating team and wished him luck during his trip to the US.
“As a result of our military achievements during this war, the conditions have been created, and a limited window of opportunity has opened to establish a framework for the release of the hostages,” Gallant said.“The defense establishment backs you in your mission to bring about an agreement,” he said.
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