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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.”
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Saudi Arabia Rejects Israel PM Netanyahu’s Remarks on Displacing Palestinians

US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk in the midst of a joint news conference in the White House in Washington, US, Jan. 28, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Saudi Arabia affirmed its categorical rejection of remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about displacing Palestinians from their land, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Israeli officials have suggested the establishment of a Palestinian state on Saudi territory. Netanyahu appeared to be joking on Thursday when he responded to an interviewer on pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 who mistakenly said “Saudi state” instead of “Palestinian state,” before correcting himself.
While the Saudi statement mentioned Netanyahu’s name, it did not directly refer to the comments about establishing a Palestinian state in Saudi territory.
Egypt and Jordan also condemned the Israeli suggestions, with Cairo deeming the idea as a “direct infringement of Saudi sovereignty.”
The kingdom said it valued “brotherly” states’ rejection of Netanyahu’s remarks.
“This occupying extremist mindset does not comprehend what the Palestinian territory means for the brotherly people of Palestine and its conscientious, historical and legal association with that land,” it said.
Discussions of the fate of Palestinians in Gaza has been upended by Tuesday’s shock proposal from President Donald Trump that the U.S. would “take over the Gaza Strip” from Israel and create a “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere.
Arab states have roundly condemned Trump’s comments, which came during a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza war that Israel has been waging against the terrorist group Hamas, which controls the narrow strip.
Trump has said Saudi Arabia was not demanding a Palestinian state as a condition for normalizing ties with Israel. But Riyadh rebuffed his statements, saying it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.
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Egypt to Host Emergency Arab Summit on 27 February to Discuss ‘Serious’ Palestinian Developments

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Egypt will host an emergency Arab summit on 27 February to discuss what it described as “serious” developments for Palestinians, according to a statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry on Sunday.
The summit comes amid regional and global condemnation of US President Donald Trump’s suggestion to “take over the Gaza Strip” from Israel and create a “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere.
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Thai Nationals Held Captive by Hamas in Gaza Return Home

Relatives hug a released Thai hostage, who was kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas and held in Gaza, as the hostages arrive in Thailand following their release, at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, in Samut Prakan, Thailand, February 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
When Surasak Rumnao, 31, left his home in Thailand’s rural Udon Thani province three years ago to go across the world to the southern Israeli town of Yesha for agriculture work, his family never imagined they would lose touch with him for over a year when he was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in October 2023.
He and four others were reunited with their families this weekend after their release from captivity in Gaza.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted more than 250 people, including Israelis and foreign nationals, in their October 2023 attack on Israel.
During the attack, Hamas terrorists killed more than 40 Thais and kidnapped 31 Thai laborers, some of whom died in captivity, according to the Thai government. Later that year, the first group of Thai hostages was returned.
Surasak’s mother, Khammee Rumnao, was relieved that her son was not mistreated and has returned to his home, about 620 km(385 miles) northeast of the capital, Bangkok.
“He mainly got to eat bread, he was looked after well and was fed all three meals (each day). He got to shower, he was looked after well,” Khammee said, and that he ate whatever his captors had.
Her son does not plan to go back and wants to use the knowledge he gained in his agricultural work in Israel at their home, she said.
His grandparents and other relatives came to their home to welcome him home.
His stepfather, Janda Prachanan, was elated.
“I couldn’t find the words to describe how happy I am, that my son is safe and finally home,” he said.
Earlier on Sunday, the other returnees, dressed in winter jackets, were met with tears of joy from their families who were waiting for their arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
“We are all deeply touched to come back to our birthplace … to be standing here,” said Pongsak Thaenna, one of the returnees said. “I don’t know what else to say, we are all truly thankful.”
Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa, who met the hostages in Israel after their release last week, expressed relief.
“This is emotional … to come back to the embrace of their families,” he said. “We never gave up and this was the fruit of that.”
Before the conflict, approximately 30,000 Thai laborers worked in Israel’s agriculture sector, making them one of the largest migrant worker groups in the country. Nearly 9,000 Thais were repatriated following the October 7 attacks.
The workers primarily come from Thailand’s northeastern region, an area comprising villages and farming communities that is among the poorest in the country.
Thailand’s foreign ministry said a Thai national is still believed to be held captive by Hamas.
“We still have hope and continue to work to bring them back,” Maris said, adding that this includes the bodies of two deceased Thai nationals.
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