Hamas insists on a permanent cessation of the war to implement any prisoner exchange agreement. A legal expert attributes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to stop the aggression on the Gaza Strip to his fear of holding elections in Israel that he would lose and that would end his life and political ambitions.
A senior Biden administration official told reporters after a phone call between Biden and Netanyahu on Sunday evening that they spoke in detail about a looming military operation in the city of Rafah in Gaza. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Israel's focus of ground operations on Rafah could "double the humanitarian nightmare"