Sullivan: Let’s make sure Israel isn’t responsible for third famine of 21st century

Talks on a hostage deal are at “a point where it could get done,” says US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

The sides are “close,” he says in Tel Aviv, and now it is a matter of “bridging that final distance.”

He attributes recent progress to the ceasefire in Lebanon, the fall of the Syrian regime, and Israel’s “military progress against Hamas’s infrastructure, formation and senior leadership.”

“The surround sound of these negotiations is different today than it has been,” he says.

Sullivan insists that what “we need to do is get into the initial phase” of a deal, “begin to produce the actual releases, the images of hostages being welcomed home to their families, as we saw during the [November 2023] release.”

“And then the terms of the deal are built on the idea that there will be ongoing discussions, diplomacy, negotiations to move from phase one to phase two,” says Sullivan, adding that “the basic elements of and the basic framework of [US President Joe Biden’s May proposal] are still alive and part of the discussions that are happening today.”

He says that both parties and the Biden and Trump administrations want “to see this ceasefire and hostage deal and see it now, that is all part of the American contribution to an effort to ultimately produce an outcome here.”

Sullivan says the US still believes that three of the seven American hostages in Gaza are alive, though, it does not have definitive proof.

In Gaza, he says, “Israel has every right, indeed, a duty to go after its enemies with everything it’s got.”

But, on the humanitarian front, “feeding starving children does not harm the security of the State of Israel.”

“Let’s make sure that Israel is not responsible for the third famine of the 21st century,” he warns.

Turning to Syria, Sullivan says the Israel and the US didn’t go into depth on the conditions that would allow Jerusalem to feel secure enough to withdraw its troops from the buffer zone. “We do have every expectation that it will be temporary.”

“We take them at their word that that is the intention here, as we work through a new arrangement that can ensure that Israel is secure in light of the risks,”he says.

“What Israel saw was an immediate threat, the collapse of a structure that had been in place for a long time, and a potential for that vacuum to be filled by a direct, proximate threat right across the border,” Sullivan explains. “So it moved in to fill that threat that, from the United States’ perspective, is logical and consistent with Israel’s right to self defense.”

He adds that the US is in conversations with Turkey “about our expectations and about what we see as the best way forward,” on the future of Syria and the safety of the Kurds.