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U.S., Israel and Hamas reach tentative deal to pause conflict and free dozens of hostages
(www.washingtonpost.com)
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Concern about the captives — two of whom Israel said were found dead — along with the rising number of Palestinian civilian casualties have steadily increased pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
After initial hesitation, the Biden administration, under its own domestic pressure between advocates of unstinting support for Israel’s war aims and concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has fully backed a temporary pause in the fighting.
Beginning with President Biden’s trip to Tel Aviv a week after the war began, and followed by multiple visits from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior officials, the administration has pushed hard with Netanyahu to understand that it is losing the narrative high ground as more Palestinians die.
Brett McGurk, the White House National Security Council’s top Middle East official, is on an extended trip to the region to try to solidify the hostage release plan, including meetings in Israel and Qatar.
McGurk told the conference that Hamas’s release of a “large number” of the hostages, believed to total 239, “would result in a significant pause in fighting and a massive surge of humanitarian relief.
Those remarks drew an angry response from Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who interpreted them as signaling that a pause allowing humanitarian relief would come only after the hostages were released unconditionally by Hamas.
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