President Joe Biden on Friday wrote to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, calling on them to press Hamas for a hostage deal with Israel, according to a senior administration official, one day after Biden called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to redouble efforts to reach a cease-fire in the six-month-old war in Gaza.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private letters, said Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will meet Monday with family members of some of the estimated 100 hostages who are believed to still be in Gaza.
The letters to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, come as Biden has deployed CIA Director William Burns to Cairo for talks this weekend about the hostage crisis.
David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, and negotiators from Egypt and Qatar are expected to attend. The Hamas side of the talks is indirect, with proposals relayed through third parties to Hamas leaders sheltering in tunnels beneath Gaza.
White House officials say negotiating a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas to facilitate the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel is the only way to put a temporary cease-fire into effect and boost the flow of badly needed humanitarian aid into the territory.
