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Senior Biden Admin Official Provides New Details on Hostage Negotiations
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands before a map of the Gaza Strip, telling viewers that Israel must retain control over the “Philadelphi corridor,” a strategic area along the territory’s border with Egypt, during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org — In a background call with journalists on Wednesday, a senior Biden administration official provided new details about the proposed ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas.
The senior official described for the first time the specific elements of the proposal and what parts of the deal continue to stall negotiations seeking to secure the release of the remaining 101 hostages.
“The deal has 18 total paragraphs,” the senior official said. “Fourteen of those paragraphs are finished.”
“You’ll sometimes hear Hamas say they agreed to a deal on July 2. Let me just explain that,” the senior official said. “There’s 18 paragraphs. Fourteen paragraphs are identical. One paragraph has a very technical fix, and the other three paragraphs have to do with the exchange of prisoners to hostages, which even Hamas’s own text of July 2 explicitly says it has to still be negotiated.”
“So, basically, 90 percent of this deal has been agreed,” the senior official said.
Biden administration officials have previously refused to describe the precise contents of the deal amid ongoing negotiations.
“I’m sure you’re all curious as to what that proposal says and what’s in it, and I’m sure you’re also not going to be surprised by the fact that I’m not going to get into that detail,” John Kirby, the White House national security communications advisor, said on Tuesday during a press call.
The senior administration official who spoke on Wednesday with reporters cited Hamas’s execution of six hostages, media reports that the official said are misleading, and the dispute over whether Israel can retain control of the Egypt-Gaza border as the reasons to offer greater clarity about the status of negotiations.
Under the multi-phased deal, the 101 remaining hostages would be released in exchange for some 800 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. Wounded Hamas fighters would also be permitted to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment, the senior US official said.
Phase one of the deal would see the release of all of the remaining women hostages, including female soldiers, men over 50, and the ill and wounded.
The official said that Israel and Hamas agreed “many months ago” to the number of Palestinian prisoners that would be released in phase one, including a portion of the 500 Palestinians serving life sentences in Israel for serious terrorist offenses.
‘We all know who we’re dealing with’
Hamas’s execution of six hostages this past week, however, complicates that potential exchange, according to the senior administration official.
“There’s a list of hostages and we all have it, and Hamas has had it and all the parties have had it, and there’s now fewer names on the list,” the official said. “It’s horrific.”
“Hamas is threatening to execute more hostages,” the official said. “This cannot be lost in what we’re dealing with here. We all know who we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with a terrorist group.”
“It’s also called into question Hamas’s readiness to do a deal of any kind,” the senior official added, of Hamas executing the hostages.
The official does not believe that the release of Palestinians serving life sentences or the Israeli “veto” over which prisoners get released pose a major obstacle but said that Hamas had made proposals about prisoner-for-hostage exchanges that were “complete non-starters.” The official didn’t detail the nature of those proposals.
The official said that one part of the deal, which has been agreed to, relates to humanitarian aid provisions for Gaza.
During the 42-day phase one, 600 aid trucks would enter the Palestinian enclave daily, including 50 trucks of fuel. Other aid provisions in phase one include immediate entry of heavy equipment to clear rubble and rehabilitate infrastructure and hospitals, as well as 60,000 temporary homes and 200,000 tents.
Debate about Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor — the Israel Defense Forces’ name for the Egypt-Gaza border — has become a highly publicized dispute in the negotiations and Israeli domestic politics, and has overshadowed the agreed-upon humanitarian elements, according to the administration official.
“Nothing in the agreement mentions the Philadelphi Corridor,” the senior official said. “What the agreement says is a ‘withdrawal from all densely-populated areas,’ and a dispute emerged whether the Philadelphi Corridor, which is effectively a road on the border of Gaza and Egypt, is a densely-populated area.”
“Based on that dispute, the Israelis, over the course of the last couple weeks, produced a proposal by which they would significantly reduce their presence on the corridor,” the official said. The official described that proposal as “technically consistent with the deal,” but Hamas has not agreed to it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made control of the corridor an increasingly central demand, going so far as to explain its significance in a presentation to the press on Wednesday.
“If you leave this corridor, you can’t prevent Hamas from not only smuggling weapons in, you can’t prevent them from smuggling terrorists, hostages out,” the prime minister said. “If you want to release the hostages, you’ve got to control the Philadelphi Corridor.”
“Gaza must be demilitarized,” Netanyahu added. “It can only be demilitarized if the Philadelphi Corridor remains under firm control and is not a supply line for armaments and terror equipment.”
Asked about Netanyahu’s statements, the senior administration official said the corridor was not the only sticking point in the talks and that it was not “particularly helpful” to stake out “concrete positions in the middle of a negotiation.”
“I’ve never been involved in a negotiation where basically every day there’s a public statement about the details of the negotiations, because it makes it difficult, especially in a hostage negotiation,” the official said. “In my view, the less that’s said about particular issues the better.”
The senior administration official also hit back at Israeli politicians who have suggested that the deal would undermine Israeli security.
“I have seen some Israeli ministers say this deal somehow would sacrifice Israel’s security,” the official said. “That is just fundamentally, totally untrue.”
“If anything, I would argue that not getting into this deal is more of a threat to Israel’s long-term security than actually concluding the deal,” the official said. “That includes on the issues of the Philadelphi Corridor and the border of Egypt.”
The post Senior Biden Admin Official Provides New Details on Hostage Negotiations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.