WASHINGTON, Sept 2: US President Joe Biden on Monday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to secure a deal for the release of hostages taken by Palestinian armed group Hamas.
Asked by reporters at the White House -- where Biden was arriving for a meeting with US negotiators -- if he thought the Israeli leader was doing enough on the issue, the president responded: "No."
Biden's meeting with the negotiators on the hostage-release deal comes after the deaths on Saturday of six captives in Gaza, including an American citizen.
The president said negotiators were "very close" to a final proposal to be presented to Israel and Hamas.
Biden's schedule was revised to make time for the White House meeting, which was also to be attended by Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running to succeed him in November's presidential election.
A White House statement said he and Harris would meet "with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team following the murder of American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas on Saturday, and discuss efforts to drive towards a deal that secures the release of the remaining hostages."
The United States, along with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar, has spent months pushing for a hostage-prisoner exchange and ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
Militants seized 251 hostages during the October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war, 97 of whom remain in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. —AFP
