White House: No progress on hostage deal since talks in Cairo fell apart last week

The efforts to secure a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas have not made any progress over the past week, since the last round of negotiations led by Egypt fell apart, says White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

“I can’t, sadly, sit here and tell you that we’re closer right now than than we were a week or so ago. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop working on it,” Kirby tells reporters during a briefing.

Kirby reiterates that US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made significant progress toward a major bilateral security agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia during his weekend visit to the Gulf kingdom.

“We have achieved a near-final set of text on some of those bilateral agreements,” Kirby says.

However, he acknowledges that the same cannot be said to the Palestinian component on which the entire initiative is contingent. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the establishment of a pathway to a future Palestinian state, which likely makes the entire US effort moot.