US President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said, as US officials race to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal before Biden leaves office on January 20.
Biden and Netanyahu discussed efforts under way to reach a deal to halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave and free the remaining hostages there, the White House said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by telephone.
Biden “stressed the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal,” it said.
Netanyahu updated Biden on progress in the talks and on the mandate he has given his top-level security delegation now in Doha to advance a hostage deal, Netanyahu said in a statement.
The two leaders also discussed “the fundamentally changed regional circumstances following the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening of Iran’s power in the region,” the White House said.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s State of the Union earlier on Sunday that the parties were “very, very close” to reaching a deal, but still had to get it across the finish line.