Biden: Gaza ceasefire ‘harder’ to achieve as Blinken heads to region to discuss aftermath

A Gaza ceasefire is difficult to achieve, US President Joe Biden reporters as he dispatched his Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region this week to begin discussions about the new geopolitical reality that exists in the aftermath of the IDF’s assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week.

Biden told reporters in Germany on Friday that “there’s a possibility of working to a ceasefire in Lebanon,” but “it’s going to be harder in Gaza.”

Earlier in the day, he had sounded more optimistic as he said, “Now is the time to move on — move on, move towards a ceasefire in Gaza.”

He explained that he had delivered the same message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he spoke with him from Air Force One late Thursday night.

“It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home.  And so, that’s what we’re ready to do,” Biden said. It’s also important, he added, to work on plans for what happens the day after Hamas in Gaza.

Hamas is incapable of another October 7

While in Germany Biden also discussed the importance of a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal to secure the release of the remaining 101 captives when he met with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“The leaders also discussed events in the Middle East, in particular the implications of the death of Yahya Sinwar, who bears responsibility for the bloodshed of the October 7th terrorist attack, the immediate necessity to bring the hostages home to their families, ending the war in Gaza, and ensuring humanitarian aid reaches civilians,” they said in a joint statement.

Netanyahu, however, in speaking of the importance of a hostage deal has also spoken of continuing the battle in Gaza to defeat Hamas.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Saturday night about the “ongoing IDF operations in Gaza and reiterated his commitment to ensuring the return of 101 hostages still held by Hamas,” his office said.

US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reports on Friday that Hamas’s military structure has been decimated to the point where it is no longer possible for the terror group in Gaza to carry out another October 7-style attack.

“They are absolutely incapable, as you and I are speaking here today, of conducting another attack on the scale of October 7,” Kirby said, explaining that now was the time to end the war.

“We believe that finding an end to the war is critical, and we believe that Sinwar’s death yesterday has provided an inflection point to getting there,” Kirby said.

The IDF has shattered Hamas’s leadership, knocking out its top leader Sinwar, Kirby explained. “They [the IDF] have eliminated any immediate threat Hamas would pose from a military perspective,” he said.

The IDF has knocked out Hamas’s command structure, gone after its weapons stashes, and made it much more difficult for Hamas “to plan and execute” in the way it did prior to October 7, Kirby stated.

“So Hamas is in a much weaker position than it ever was before,” he said.

He cautioned, however, that they still exist as a “terror organization” and they are still holding hostages, but it is a “shadow” of its former self.

“The President believes,” therefore Kirby said, “ that with Sinwar’s killing, there is a unique opportunity to end the war” in Gaza and to “get the hostages home.”

Still, he dashed hopes, of an imminent release of hostages in the aftermath of Sinwar’s killing.

May hostage agreement is basis

The possibility of serious negotiations to finalize a hostage deal is still not possible, but when those talks do resume it would be on the basis of the May three-phase agreement, Kirby said.

“We're not in a position right now where serious negotiations are in the offing,” Kirby said. “If and when we can get those talks back in place, the starting point will be where we left it,” he said, referring to the three-phase talks that largely ended late in August after Hamas executed six of the captives, including Israeli-US citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, at the end of August.

“I could tell you today that we're getting the teams back together in Doha and we're starting afresh. That's not where we are right now,” Kirby said.

Netanyahu in a public statement on Thursday night opened the possibility of making individual deals with Palestinian captors in Gaza in the wake of Sinwar’s killing.

The United States, which has worked with Qatar and Egypt to mediate a deal, has focused on a more global ceasefire and hostage deal.

Kirby underscored that Sinwar, who was the mastermind of the October 7 attack in which the hostages were seized and who had ruled Gaza since 2017, has been the main stumbling block to a deal.

“Sinwar was the main obstacle to getting the ceasefire done,” he said. He refused every proposal while the Israeli compromised each and every time, Kirby said.

Then Sinwar “found a way to stop” any progress, Kirby said.

Still, he said, “his death does provide a unique opportunity here to try to take advantage of,” Kirby said.

Hamas Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya threw cold water on that optimism when he said that Israeli hostages in Gaza would not be freed until "the aggression" on the besieged Palestinian enclave stops and Israeli forces withdraw.

Reuters contributed to this report.