Major roadblocks in Gaza ceasefire talks raise doubts over whether war can be ended before Biden leaves office
Men walk through debris in a building that was hit by Israeli bombardment in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City on September 3.
By MJ Lee, Alex Marquardt and Kevin Liptak, CNN
(CNN) — The Biden administration has hit major roadblocks in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations after months of feverish work, raising doubts within the White House about whether the Israel-Hamas war can come to an end before the end of Joe Biden’s one-term presidency, officials told CNN.
While Biden and his top aides have persistently expressed hope that they can ultimately push a deal across the line, significant complications have shifted the mood in recent days.
US officials say they are increasingly skeptical that Hamas and the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, may actually want an agreement. They have accused the group of making the negotiations more difficult following the recent execution of six hostages in Gaza.
And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has poured cold water on US hopefulness, though Biden officials have largely refrained from criticizing him. The prime minister said bluntly this week that a deal is not close and is arguing for a permanent Israeli presence in southwestern Gaza, despite international calls, including from the US, for Israel to eventually fully withdraw.
Meanwhile, anger has soared in Israel with massive protests around the country against the Netanyahu government for failing to secure a deal that would bring home the more than 100 hostages who remain, several of whom are also American.
US officials, for now, are insistent that the bulk of the blame for the impasse lies with Hamas. They may simply “never want a deal,” one senior administration official told CNN, echoing the concerns widely raised both in public and in private by US officials in recent days about Sinwar’s interest in getting to a “yes” in ceasefire and hostage talks that have stalled once again.
Asked whether more pressure on Netanyahu would help close a deal, another senior administration official replied: “The president has chosen his way of getting Netanyahu across the finish line.”
As for holding back weapons or using other leverage the US has over Israel, “It’s not clear those things would change the behavior of a government that includes the likes of [far-right minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir,” the senior official added.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that “it’s incumbent on both parties” – Israel and Hamas – “to get to yes” on the “remaining issues.”
If a ceasefire agreement fails to materialize in the next few months, it would mark an enormous foreign policy disappointment and failure for Biden, who has spent a huge amount of time, effort and political capital over the past year pushing for an end to the conflict. The president’s focus on the foreign policy – and the conflict in Gaza, in particular – have only re-doubled in recent weeks following his decision to end his reelection campaign, sources said.
Biden ‘obsessed’ with the issue
Aides said Biden has been more free to place phone calls to players in the region than he would have been if he was campaigning in battleground states. He has spoken to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar in recent weeks as he looks to bring a deal across the finish line.
One top Democrat close to the White House described Biden as simply “obsessed” with the issue as of late.
But the devastating news over the weekend from Israel’s military that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages murdered by Hamas in Gaza, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin set off alarms across the administration about Sinwar’s willingness to engage in ceasefire discussions.
“It has brought a sense of urgency to the process, but it’s also called into question Hamas’s readiness to do a deal of any kind,” the first senior administration official said.
Even as some American officials have begun questioning how seriously Hamas is interested in an agreement, there are also growing doubts about Netanyahu’s own willingness to strike a deal that could potentially weaken his grip on power.
This week, Netanyahu held two press conferences to forcefully argue that Israel’s forces must remain in the long term in the stretch along the Egypt-Gaza border known as the Philadelphi Corridor, in order to prevent smuggling by Hamas and other militant groups.
Netanyahu’s insistence contradicted the ceasefire agreement that the administration said Israel had signed on to which envisioned an initial withdrawal by the IDF away from that border in a first phase and then completely from Gaza in a second phase.
“In my view, the less that’s said about particular issues, the better,” a senior administration official told reporters Wednesday in response to Netanyahu’s press conference. “Staking out concrete positions in the middle of a negotiation isn’t always particularly helpful.”
Haniyeh assassination stunned Biden officials
American officials were stunned to learn of the July assassination in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, believed to be the work of the Israelis. Biden and his team worried Haniyeh’s killing could risk foiling the ceasefire and hostage talks at the very moment they seemed to be approaching a conclusion. Haniyeh was one of the lead Hamas negotiators.
Only a week earlier, Biden and Netanyahu met in the Oval Office, where the assassination wasn’t mentioned. Instead, Netanyahu insisted to the American president he was serious about achieving a ceasefire deal after Biden insisted — at points raising his voice — that a deal be struck in a matter of weeks.
After Haniyeh’s death, Biden held a heated phone call with Netanyahu to insist, again, that a deal be reached. The prime minister told Biden he was not standing in the way of a ceasefire agreement and argued Haniyeh’s death could result in more pressure on Hamas and a speedier resolution to the talks.
“I had a very direct meeting with the prime minister today — very direct,” Biden told reporters hours after the phone call. “We have the basis for a cease-fire. He should move on it and they should move on it now.”
That is not ultimately what transpired, and recent events have once again exposed the serious gap between American and Israeli officials when it comes to the state of the talks.
“It is hard to explain why, after three months of negotiations, the administration still believes maintaining the fiction Netanyahu has agreed [to the deal’s framework] makes it more likely he will eventually agree,” said a former senior administration official who added that the White House is “insulating Netanyahu from criticism.”
In the aftermath of the hostages’ bodies being recovered over the weekend, Biden claimed that the parties were on the “verge” of having an agreement. Days later, a senior administration official who briefed reporters argued that the majority of the details of a ceasefire deal – “90%” – had been agreed to by the two parties.
But Netanyahu was quick to squarely reject that assessment, saying in an interview: “There’s not a deal in the making.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not close,” he said.
In a detail not previously shared, the senior official said that of the 18 paragraphs in the agreement, 14 were finished and agreed to. The “disputes” that remained, the official continued, are about where Israeli troops will move to and the 800 Palestinian prisoners expected to be released in the first phase.
“Other than that,” the official added, “that’s about it.”
Speaking in London on Saturday, CIA Director Bill Burns acknowledged the difficulties in finalizing an agreement.
“I cannot sit here today with all of you and say that we’re gonna succeed in that. I cannot tell you how close we are right now,” he said. “It is a fact that, if you look at the written text, 90% of the paragraphs have been agreed to, but, in any negotiation I’ve been involved in, the last 10% is the last 10% for a reason because it’s the hardest part to do.”
Pressure has also grown on Netanyahu from his military and defense officials after almost a year of war in Gaza while also fending off attacks from other fronts has stretched the Israeli military.
“I know the Defense Ministry and IDF want the war to end. They need to rest and refit, in case a war in the north [with Hezbollah] is going to happen,” the second senior administration official said.
Pressed multiple times on the messaging gulf between the US and Israel, White House national security spokesman John Kirby insisted that the US remains “pragmatic” about the state of the talks.
“I’m just going to take issue with the idea that we’re somehow pulling the wool over your guys’ eyes or being overly optimistic,” Kirby said. “We’re being pragmatic about it, and we do believe that we have made an immense amount of progress in the last few months in terms of getting the structure of the deal in place, but nothing is negotiated until everything is negotiated.”
For his part, Biden has remained hopeful for a deal, despite the painstaking talks. Asked by CNN on Monday how the new deal being finalized would be different than other failed proposals, Biden responded only: “Hope springs eternal.”
This story has been updated with additional reaction.
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