Biden urged PM to help secure hostage deal in call ahead of Lebanon ceasefire announcement

US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their call yesterday ahead of the public announcement of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire that now was the time to focus on securing a hostage deal, Axios reports.

Biden said as much in his speech announcing the Lebanon deal shortly after the call.

“We have an opportunity now. Let’s get the hostages,” Biden told Netanyahu, according to US officials who spoke to Axios and who said the prime minister responded positively and said he wanted to try.

“What the president refuses to say is ‘The hostages should stay in tunnels or in some other horrible condition that they’re in for three more months because the United States has a transition period,” US special envoy Amos Hochstein told Jewish American community leaders during a briefing earlier today.