Biden, Trump teams worked 'hand in hand' on Gaza deal, outgoing ambassador says
President-elect Trump's and President Biden’s teams worked “hand in hand” for a hostage and ceasefire in Gaza deal, according to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew.
In the wake of November's election, the Trump and Biden teams began working together, Lew told Reuters in a Thursday report from the outlet.
"I think a lot of progress has been made. The fact that you have an outgoing and an incoming administration that have worked hand in hand to make the case for urgency, I think, has been noticed by all parties," the ambassador told Reuters.
A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas was unveiled Wednesday. It is expected to begin Sunday, with its first phase including a six-week ceasefire, as well as Hamas releasing 33 hostages out of an estimated 94 people, both alive and dead, it has held captive for more than a year.
Biden hailed the agreement Wednesday, saying getting “to this deal has not been easy.”
“I’ve worked on foreign policy for decades. This was one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced," he said, adding they reached the deal because of "the pressure Israel built on Hamas, backed by the United States."
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged Thursday that Hamas had reneged on parts of the agreement. He said in a statement that his Cabinet isn’t going to sign off on the deal until the Palestinian militant group agrees to every part of it.
"The fact that [Biden] and the president-elect use different language in this case may create constructive tension, because they have the same goal, and [Trump] has used language that makes people say, 'What's going to happen next?' If we were working at cross-purposes, it would be perhaps a different situation. But we're not. There's no daylight between what we're trying to accomplish," Lew said.