 "US President Joe Biden has expressed hope that a truce in Gaza may begin early the next week Image Courtesy Reuters")
Hours after US President Joe Biden said that Israel had accepted a ceasefire deal with Hamas, both the warring sides slammed the leader’s comment as “premature” and “optimistic.”
During an interview with NBC, Biden said, “Ramadan’s coming up and there’s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out.”
Downplaying Biden’s remark, a senior unnamed Israeli official told Ynet News that he “does not know what Biden’s optimism is based on.”
Meanwhile, according to a report by Reuters, a Hamas official said that President Biden’s statement on Israel and Hamas agreeing on a ceasefire deal in Gaza is premature and “does not match the situation on the ground.”
The Hamas official added that there are “big gaps that still need to be filled” in the ceasefire negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar, the US and France.
Meanwhile, during the negotiation talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Israel was ready to accept a deal, it was up to Hamas to drop its demand that he considered “from another planet.”
Netanyahu insisted an assault on Rafah was still planned, and Israel had a plan to evacuate civilians from harm’s way. Asked if Israel would attack even if Washington asked it not to, Netanyahu said: “Well, we’ll go in. We make our own decisions, obviously, but we’ll go in based on the idea of having also the evacuation of the civilians.”
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More ShortsWith inputs from agencies