White House: Biden raised issue of US hostages held in Gaza during meeting with Trump
Sullivan says outgoing administration sent ‘signal’ to Trump transition team that it’s ready to collaborate in order to reach a deal; POTUS meets families of remaining US hostages
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US President Joe Biden raised the issue of the American hostages still being held in Gaza during his Oval Office meeting on Wednesday with President-elect Donald Trump, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
The outgoing administration has also sent a “signal” to the Trump transition team that it is prepared to collaborate in order to secure a hostage deal, Sullivan said during a press briefing.
The top Biden aide said the American hostage families urged such collaboration when he met with them on Tuesday, adding that his answer to them was an “emphatic yes” and that the current administration will use every day it has left to work for the return of the captives held by Hamas their loved ones.
Trump separately told reporters that he and Biden “talked very much about the Middle East” during their meeting.
“I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious,” Trump said. In a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, Trump warned those holding American hostages that they will “pay” if they’re not returned by the time he enters office. He has also repeatedly made a point of speculating that many of the hostages are no longer alive.
Later Wednesday afternoon, Biden met the families of the seven remaining hostages American-Israeli hostages. The US president has met with the group several times since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, most recently with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of July.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Biden provided an update to the families on US efforts to secure their loved ones’ release, reaffirming his commitment to bring the hostages home, the White House said in its readout.
American-Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen’s father Jonathan told The Times of Israel that Biden discussed a number of initiatives that his administration is pursuing to try and reach a deal.
The families used the opportunity to express their gratitude to Biden for his personal involvement on behalf of their loved ones over the past year, Dekel-Chen said.
During the families’ Tuesday meeting with Sullivan, the American-Israeli hostage families urged the Biden administration to work with their counterparts on the Trump transition team in order to secure a hostage deal before the president-elect enters office in two months.
“Our requests… of both administrations right now is that they work together, not to prepare the Trump administration for taking office in late January, but rather to get this done now in this unique moment,” Dekel-Chen said.
The families are seeking a “Reagan-esque moment,” he said, recalling how then US president Jimmy Carter and president-elect Ronald Reagan both worked to secure the release of American hostages at the embassy in Iran during the transition period between their two administrations. The Islamic Republic freed the hostages on the day of Reagan’s inauguration.
If the sides wait until Trump enters office on January 20 to strike a deal, “there’s a very real possibility that none of the hostages will remain alive, and it will be nearly impossible to retrieve the remains of those who have been murdered,” Dekel-Chen warned.
Roughly half of the remaining 101 hostages are believed to still be alive.
He faulted the Israeli government for “abandoning” the hostages for more than 400 days, but Dekel-Chen asserted that the Biden administration has done “everything in its power” to negotiate a deal, amid pushback from both Israel and Hamas.
While they’re in Washington this week, the families of the American-Israeli hostages were also working to secure additional meetings with some of Trump’s recently announced nominees along with Republican lawmakers, given that the GOP will likely be in control of both houses of Congress next year.
The American-Israeli hostage families met with the senior staff of Sen. Marco Rubio, who Trump announced on Wednesday would be his nominee for secretary of state.
Earlier Wednesday, Channel 13 reported that the IDF’s hostage point man Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon recently warned cabinet ministers that “time is short and conditions are deteriorating” for the captives.
According to the network, Alon said “stagnation” on the issue cannot be accepted. He noted that Hamas has “taken a beating everywhere” in Gaza, that “winter is arriving and conditions of the hostages are deteriorating.”
The general was quoted saying the IDF’s achievements have created conditions for a deal.
This was also the stance voiced last week to hostage families by recently ousted defense minister Yoav Gallant, who suggested that Netanyahu has kept the war going for political reasons, not due to security concerns, preventing a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
In quickly leaked remarks from a Likud faction meeting late last month, Netanyahu can be heard ruling out ending the war in exchange for the hostages, in what has further complicated negotiations. His critics have claimed his refusal to end the war stems from concerns that this would lead to the collapse of his coalition, which includes far-right elements who want the fighting to continue and for settlements to be established in northern Gaza.
While US officials have told The Times of Israel that the US has privately fumed at Netanyahu for adding conditions to an Israeli proposal that scuttled a deal in July, Washington has publicly placed more of the blame on Hamas for the ongoing impasse.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blasted Hamas’s rejection of recent proposals for a short-term deal in remarks to reporters on Wednesday, adding that the terror group’s refusal to engage in recent negotiations is what led Qatar to tell Hamas’s officials in Doha to leave the country. No timeline has been given for the Hamas officials’ departure, however.
And while Blinken stressed Israel’s responsibility to surge humanitarian aid throughout Gaza, he called out the international community for failing to hold Hamas responsible for the continuation of the war. “It’s extraordinary to me that from almost day one, there is no focus on Hamas and almost deafening silence around the world on Hamas.”
