Biden says does not expect imminent exchange deal in Gaza

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Israeli media
20 Dec 2023 22:16

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims that the US is actively engaged in seeking another deal, expressing Israeli interest in it as well.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets the media after signing the joint statement of Finland and the United States on cooperation in advanced wireless communications (6G) at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Helsinki, Finland Friday, June 2, 2023. (AP)

Joe Biden said he does not expect an imminent deal between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Resistance over the release of captives held in Gaza.

“We’re pushing it. I don’t … there’s no expectation at this point,” the US President told reporters. This comes right after the White House earlier on Wednesday said there are “very serious” discussions over a humanitarian pause in Gaza and a captives release deal.

In this context, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized that the Biden administration aims to conclude the war on Gaza "as quickly as possible" in the coming year.

“It’s clear that this conflict needs to move — will move — to a lower intensity phase,” Blinken said. “We expect to see, and want to see, a shift to more targeted operations, with a smaller number of forces that are really focused on dealing with the leadership of Hamas, the tunnel network, and a few other different things.”

“As that happens, you’ll see the harm done to civilians decrease significantly,” the US secretary of state acknowledged.

Blinken reiterated that the United States will persist in assisting "Israel" to “ensure that what happened on October 7 can never happen again.”

The Biden administration claimed it would exert efforts to swiftly end the war “while minimizing loss of life and the suffering of civilians, getting the remaining hostages back home to their families, preventing the conflict from spreading, and breaking the devastating cycle of violence and moving toward durable, lasting peace.”

Blinken claimed that the US is actively engaged in seeking another deal, expressing Israeli interest in it as well. However, he claimed that the main obstacle was Hamas, which failed to adhere to the terms of the previous agreement.

In this context, Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced guarded hope Wednesday that the United States would be able to support a new UN Security Council resolution on Gaza, with a sticking point on access to aid.

This comes although the US vetoed two resolutions at the Security Council as it rejected calls on "Israel" to end its aggression on Gaza.

Blinken, addressing reporters in Washington, said the United States was engaging "in very good faith" with other countries, after fury in the Arab world over the vetoes.

"We've been working this intensely. I've been on the phones about this for the last couple of days," Blinken said.

"I hope we can get to a good place," he said.

"The purpose of the resolution as stated by the countries that put it forward is to facilitate and help expand humanitarian assistance that's getting into Gaza. And we fully support that," Blinken said.

"We want to make sure that the resolution in what it calls for and requires actually advances that effort and doesn't do anything that could actually hurt the delivery of humanitarian assistance, make it more complicated," he added.

Right after his statements, it was reported that a UN Security Council vote on a much-delayed resolution calling for a pause to the aggression was postponed again Wednesday as the US insisted on a specific wording while the death toll in Gaza continued climbing.

It is noteworthy that the families of the Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinian Resistance in the Gaza Strip increased their demands for an immediate prisoner-captive exchange deal, knowing that these demands intensified after al-Shujaiya incident where the occupation forces killed their captives held by the Resistance.

'Israel's' repeated violations of previous deals

The Israeli occupation forces have been reported to have breached the terms of previous agreements on multiple occasions.

The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and ex-Detainees Affairs revealed, on December 11, that "Israel" violated the terms of the prisoner exchange deal that was recently made according to the truce agreement with the Palestinian Resistance, by pursuing the prisoner freed under the deal, Fadwa Hamadeh.

A one-week Qatari-Egyptian-mediated truce deal that ended on December 1 saw 105 captives, including 80 Israelis, released from Gaza by the Palestinian Resistance in exchange for 240 female and minor male Palestinian prisoners who were arbitrarily detained in Israeli occupation prisons.

The authority explained that a trial session for Hamadeh was held in absentia in the so-called “Haifa Magistrate’s Court,” adding that the judge summoned her to an upcoming session, with the condition that she “appear with her lawyer to pronounce a sentence against her.”

The judge claimed that she “committed violations during her years of captivity against the prison administration and its police, and therefore she must be held accountable for them,” without giving any consideration to her release as part of an official exchange deal.”