US envoy acknowledges PM hasn’t publicly supported hostage deal he authorized
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield acknowledges that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly and clearly come out in support of the hostage deal proposal he authorized late last month.
“He hasn’t said it for reasons that… I can’t get into here, but [in] the conversations between the President and Netanyahu, and Secretary Blinken and Netanyahu, [the prime minister] has been clear that they accept this resolution,” Thomas-Greenfield says in an interview with NPR.
“They are ready to move forward. They want to see the hostages released, and they want to see peace occur along their borders, and they are working with us on this,” she adds.
Netanyahu has issued vague statements asserting that the offer allows Israel to continue the war until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, even though the deal envisions an initial ceasefire with Hamas still in power that is later turned permanent through another round of talks during that first six-week truce.
