Biden
Says Netanyahu is Not Doing Enough to Free Hostages in Gaza
President
Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are at odds once again as
negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release deal drag on.
David E.
Sanger
By David E.
Sanger
David E.
Sanger has covered national security and diplomacy for The Times for more than
four decades.
Sept. 2,
2024
Updated 7:34
p.m. ET
President
Biden issued a one-word rebuke on Monday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
commitment to reaching a cease-fire and hostage release deal, the latest
iteration of the White House’s monthslong effort to cajole and censure the
Israeli leader.
As he exited
Marine One on the White House lawn on the way to a meeting of his national
security team, Mr. Biden was asked a series of questions by waiting reporters
about whether Mr. Netanyahu was doing enough to achieve a deal to get the
hostages back. The president responded simply: “No.”
But as the
advisers briefed Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, whose every
utterance on the Israel-Hamas war is being examined for evidence that she is
ready to shift administration policy, it became clear that far more than just
Mr. Netanyahu’s own political calculations was getting in the way of a
preliminary hostage exchange and six-week cease-fire.
While
administration officials say that they have locked down 90 percent of the
18-paragraph-long preliminary accord, Hamas has still not approved a final list
of which hostages would be released, and who would be released in a first
phase. In return, Israel would release a large number of Hamas fighters and
other prisoners.
Among those
who had been expected to be freed were several of the six Israeli and American
hostages who were executed over the weekend, apparently after their captors
feared that an Israeli rescue operation was underway. One of them was Hersh
Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual American and Israeli citizen who had lost an arm
trying to protect others during the Oct. 7 terror attack that precipitated the
Israel-Hamas war.
Hamas has
demanded that all Israeli forces be withdrawn from the Philadelphi Corridor, a
narrow strip of land, less than 9 miles long, on the border between Gaza and
Egypt. Mr. Netanyahu has said Israeli troops must remain in the corridor to
prevent the movement of weapons and ammunition to Hamas.
The draft
agreement calls for a major reduction in Israeli forces in the corridor during
the first phase of the cease-fire, and full withdrawal thereafter. Israeli
government negotiators have agreed to the phased withdrawal, but Mr. Netanyahu
has backed away from that part of the deal, triggering an open dispute with his
own defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
“It is too
late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood,” Mr. Gallant said on
Sunday, declaring that Mr. Netanyahu had to drop his insistence on the presence
of troops in the corridor. “We must bring back the hostages that are still
being held by Hamas.”
White House
officials are considering pushing another “final” draft of the agreement in
coming days, after the region has cooled off from the execution of the
hostages.
There have
been other final drafts. A week and a half ago, White House and State
Department officials said there would be a meeting of the negotiators, except
for Hamas, to approve a final accord. That meeting never happened after Yahya
Sinwar, the Hamas leader, rejected elements of it, and Mr. Netanyahu insisted
on the continued military presence in the corridor.
After the
Situation Room meeting on Monday, Mr. Biden said little about his strategy over
the next days and weeks, including whether there would be a presentation of
another final draft. “We’re in the middle of negotiations,’’ Mr. Biden said to
reporters after the meeting, on the way to a campaign event with Ms. Harris in
Pennsylvania.
Mr. Biden
ignored a question about Mr. Netanyahu’s defiant stance during a news
conference in Israel on Monday, when the prime minister questioned what message
it would send to Hamas after the deaths of the hostages if Israel let up in the
fighting. “Slay hostages and you’ll get concessions?” the prime minister said.
Mr. Biden
would only say that “we’re still in negotiations — not with him, but with my
colleagues from Qatar and Egypt.”
Ms. Harris
did not talk about the strategy. At the Democratic National Convention two
weeks ago, she strongly backed Israel, while saying more had to be done to
relieve the sufferings of the Palestinian people. But she has been careful to
hew closely to the administration’s current policy, and deflected calls from
the progressive wing of the party to cut off at least some weapons shipments to
Israel, a step the British took on Monday.
The British
decision puts its government and Washington at odds on the tactics for dealing
with Mr. Netanyahu. Washington suspended export of 2,000-pound bombs earlier
this year, saying their use could lead to wide civilian casualties and were not
needed by the Israelis. But Britain has gone further. David Lammy, Britain’s
foreign secretary, said that a legal review concluded there was “clear risk”
that a number of weapons would be used in ways that would breach international
law. Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have not reached a similar conclusion.
Still, Mr.
Biden and Mr. Netanyahu have clashed often in the past 10 months, and with
particular intensity since the spring. White House officials thought they were
near a hostage deal in mid-July, one of several moments in which they believed
— and Mr. Biden publicly declared — that the negotiations mediated by the
United States, Qatar and Egypt would result in a temporary cease-fire, with
hopes of a longer-lasting one.
Other
obstacles to a deal have come from Mr. Sinwar, the Hamas leader, who has been
engaged in the negotiations remotely as he hides out, presumably underground in
Gaza. Israeli military and intelligence officials, with American help, are
hunting for Mr. Sinwar, considered the lead architect of the Oct. 7 attack that
killed roughly 1,100 Israelis.
David E.
Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a
Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on
challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger
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