NANTUCKET, Massachusetts (Reuters) – United States President Joe Biden highlighted on Friday the role played by American diplomacy in the agreement between Israel and Palestinian Hamas which allowed the release of 24 hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
“Starting this morning, as part of an agreement reached through intense diplomatic activity by the United States, including through numerous telephone calls I made from the Oval Office with leaders in the region, the fighting in Gaza will cease for four days,” Joe Biden said during a speech to the press.
The American president judged that the chances of extending this truce were “real”.
Hamas on Friday released a first group of 13 Israeli women and children, or dual nationals, as part of an agreement providing for a four-day cessation of fighting, as well as 10 Thai workers and a Filipino national, all kidnapped on October 7 during of the attack on the Palestinian movement in southern Israel. Hamas took a total of around 240 hostages during this attack, which also left around 1,200 dead, according to Israeli authorities.
“My expectation and my hope is that as we move forward, the rest of the Arab world and the region will also put pressure on all parties to calm this down, to end this as quickly as possible,” he said. said Joe Biden.
(Jeff Mason, Kanishka Singh, Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, French version Bertrand Boucey)
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