US official: ‘Still a significant amount of work to do’ but we believe deal is possible

A senior administration official clarifies that while the joint statement issued by the US, Egypt and Qatar refers to the aim of next Thursday’s negotiations as closing the remaining gaps, “It’s not like the agreement is going to be ready to be signed on Thursday.”

“There’s still a significant amount of work to do, but we do believe that what’s left can be bridged,” the senior administration official says, adding that Thursday will only see a “resumption” of the talks, not their finalization.

Pressed several times on whether the US thinks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is serious about reaching a deal, the administration official tries to strike a more balanced approach.

“It’s incumbent upon not just the Israeli side, but also the Hamas side [to reach a deal]. At the end of the day, this is a hostage negotiation, and they’re holding hostages,” the senior official says.

“With some force of will and sitting down to hash it out, we think [a deal] is possible,” he says.

The idea for a joint statement came from the calls Biden held on Tuesday with the leaders of Qatar and Egypt, the senior administration official says, noting that Netanyahu’s office has already welcomed the initiative and said the premier would send a delegation to the summit next week.

The administration official says the summit next Thursday will be held in either Doha or Cairo and that preparatory talks will likely begin soon in Washington to prepare for the meeting, as the US simultaneously readies for a potential attack on Israel by Iran.

The official says the joint statement by the US, Egypt and Qatar was the result of US President Joe Biden’s counterparts in Cairo and Doha pushing for the move and is not specifically aimed at sending a signal to Iran regarding its potential attack on Israel.

However, the senior US official acknowledges that if Iran “launches a major war in the Middle East with some massive attack on Israel, which they’re threatening in coordination with other groups, that’s obviously going to significantly jeopardize any hope of getting a ceasefire in Gaza, because we’ll very much be focused on other things.”