Benjamin Netanyahu sits with his hands on his knees in the oval office, wearing a blue tight and dark suit. Joe Biden sits to his left, wearing a navy suit with clasped hands.
The White House is pushing for a deal as Biden ends his term in office this week.
US President, Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken by phone – Biden’s final week in office – as momentum builds towards a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Israel and Hamas are understood to be making progress but uncertainty remains over key aspects of the potential agreement.

The White House said Biden discussed the “fundamentally changed regional circumstances” following Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening of Iran’s power in the region.

Netanyahu’s office said he had updated Biden on instructions he had given to senior negotiators in Doha “in order to advance the release of the hostages”.
During Sunday’s call, which was the first to be publicly announced since October, Biden “stressed the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal”.

It came a day after Netanyahu sent a top Israeli security delegation, including the directors of the Mossad spy agency and Shin Bet security service, to indirect negotiations in Qatar’s capital mediated by Qatari, US and Egyptian officials.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu was meeting members of his cabinet opposed to a ceasefire deal to persuade them not to resign.

And UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy met his Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem to discuss progress on a deal.

On Saturday, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff met the Israeli prime minister amid efforts to try to reach a deal before the president-elect’s inauguration on 20 January.

Trump has previously said that “all hell would break loose” if the hostages were not released before he returned to the White House.

Last Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an agreement was “very close” and that he hoped to “get it over the line” before Trump took office. Any deal would be based on the proposals Biden set out in May, he added.

Despite the apparent heightened activity, a lack of clarity on several key issues – including whether an initial truce will lead to a permanent ceasefire and whether the Israeli military will agree to fully withdrawing from Gaza – remain.

Anshel Pfeffer, Israel correspondent for The Economist, said he was doubtful that a deal would be achieved quickly.

“We’ve been here so many times before,” he told the BBC’s Today Programme.

“There is a bit more room for optimism, but until there is an official announcement or a truce or ceasefire and we start seeing hostages coming out, I’m going to remain sceptical.”

But he added that it was in both Israel and Hamas’s interest to strike a deal before Trump entered office.

“There is a fear [from Hamas] that Trump will somehow give Israel permission to unleash devastation that hasn’t yet been unleashed on Gaza.”

“Both sides feel so invested, they’ve suffered so much.”

The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 46,500 people have been killed during the war.

Israel says 94 of the hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 34 are presumed dead, as well as another four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.

BBC/ Titilayo Kupoliyi

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US President, Joe Biden has said civilians who are “packed” into Rafah in the Gaza Strip are “exposed and vulnerable” and must be protected.

Israel must make “credible” efforts to protect the more than one million Palestinians sheltering in the southern Gazan city, he said.

Rafah has come under heavy Israeli air strikes in recent days, with a number of casualties reported.

A Palestinian doctor told the BBC people in Rafah were living in fear.

Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had ordered troops to prepare to expand its ground operation to Rafah. He vowed to defeat Hamas gunmen hiding in the city.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said any assault would be “terrifying” and many civilians “will likely be killed”.

More than half of the Gaza Strip’s population of 2.3 million is now crammed into the city on the border with Egypt, which was home to only 250,000 people before the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October.

Many of the displaced people are living in makeshift shelters or tents in squalid conditions, with scarce access to safe drinking water or food.

On Sunday, Israel’s military said two male Israeli-Argentine hostages had been rescued during a raid in Rafah.

President Biden again appealed for the protection of Rafah civilians after his meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Washington on Monday.

He said any major military operation in the city “should not proceed without a credible plan for ensuring the safety” of those living there.

“Many people there have been displaced, displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north and now they’re packed into Rafah, exposed and vulnerable.

“They need to be protected. And we’ve also been clear from the start, we oppose any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.”

Last week, the White House said it would not support major Israeli operations in Rafah without due consideration for the refugees there.

Many people have fled Israel’s ground operation in the rest of the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave run by Hamas.

BBC / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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