The White House expects Israel to agree to Biden’s ceasefire proposal, if Hamas also accepts, said the US national security spokesman on Sunday, as strikes continue across Gaza on Monday.
Fresh strikes were reported across the Gaza Strip overnight into Monday, as mediators urged Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC News on Sunday that “we have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal, that Israel would say yes”.
Since Biden spoke at the White House on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will pursue the war until it has destroyed Hamas.
Hamas has said it “views positively” what Biden described as an Israeli proposal.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to discuss the deal, the State Department said Sunday night.
In the calls, Blinken “commended” Israel on the proposal and “emphasised that Hamas should take the deal without delay”.
Netanyahu, a hawkish political veteran leading a fragile right-wing coalition government, is under intense domestic pressure from two sides.
Protesters backing an immediate hostage release, who rallied again Saturday in Tel Aviv, want him to strike a truce deal, but his far-right allies are threatening to bring down the government if he does.
Meanwhile, fighting has continued to rock Gaza, with hospitals there reporting at least 19 killed in overnight strikes into Monday morning.
Gaza’s European hospital said 10 people were killed and several wounded in an Israeli air strike on a house east of the main southern city of Khan Yunis. And six people were reported killed in a strike on a family home further north in the central Bureij refugee camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
Political Pressure
Mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt said they called “on both Hamas and Israel to finalise the agreement embodying the principles outlined by President Joe Biden”.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC News Sunday that “we have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal, that Israel would say yes.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir warned that they would leave the government if it endorsed the truce proposal.
But opposition leader Yair Lapid, a centrist former premier vowed to back Netanyahu if his far-right coalition partners quit.
Defense Minister Gallant said on Sunday that Israel was “assessing a governing alternative” to Hamas.
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‘No Milk’ for Children
Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing last month has further slowed sporadic aid deliveries for Gaza’s 2.4 million people and effectively closed its main exit point on the Egyptian border.
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Aid agencies and the UN have warned for months of the looming risk of famine in the besieged territory.
At a hospital in Deir al-Balah, 33-year-old Amira al-Taweel told AFP that her son, suffering from malnutrition, “needs treatment and milk, but there’s none available in Gaza.”
Aid agencies say that a rise in malnutrition among children is largely a result of humanitarian aid that enters Gaza and does not its intended destination.
With AFP
