Israel accepts Biden’s Gaza plan but ‘not a good deal’: Netanyahu’s aide

Israel has accepted a framework deal for ending the Gaza war proposed by US President Joe Biden, an aide to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the news agency Reuters on Sunday.

However, Netanyahu described it as “flawed” and in need of much more work, his aide stated. Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu, said in an interview with a British newspaper, The Sunday Times, that Biden’s proposal was “a deal we agreed to — it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them”.

“There are a lot of details to be worked out,” including “the release of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas as a genocidal terrorist organisation” have not changed, Falk stated.

The US President on May 31 announced that Israel proposed to Hamas a deal involving an initial six-week ceasefire with a partial Israeli military withdrawal and the release of some hostages while “a permanent end to hostilities”. The proposal, according to Biden, also “creates a better ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power”. He said that the deal was being negotiated through mediators.

Netanyahu was facing growing pressure after Biden’s three-stage proposal, the Associated Press stated.

The six-week-long first phase would include a “full and complete ceasefire” and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza. Additionally, hostages, including women, the elderly, and the wounded, will be released by Hamas in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

In the second phase, all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, will be released, and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza, according to Biden’s proposal.

A major reconstruction of Gaza is proposed in the third phase, which faces decades of rebuilding from the devastation caused by the war.