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US President Joe Biden on his arrival in New York

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Jim Watson/AFP

For weeks there has been a struggle for a new ceasefire and the release of more hostages in the Israel-Gaza war.

Now US President Joe Biden is hopeful.

The negotiators were close to an agreement, he said on Monday evening (local time) in New York to reporters who had followed him into an ice cream parlor.

He had previously been a guest on the talk show “Late Night with Seth Meyers”.

When asked when he expected a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war to begin, Biden said: “I hope by the end of the weekend.

My national security advisor tells me we're close.

We're close." The negotiators aren't there yet, but: "I hope that we'll have a ceasefire by next Monday."

Delegations from Israel and Hamas are currently in Qatar.

They are speaking separately to intermediaries from the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

Both sides accuse each other of delaying talks.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyyeh said after a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, that his group welcomed the mediators' efforts to end the war.

Israel is delaying negotiations while people in the Gaza Strip are dying under the siege.

"We will not allow the enemy to use negotiations as a cover for this crime," said the Hamas leader.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ready for an agreement and that it was now up to Hamas to abandon its demands, which he described as "absurd" and "from another planet."

»Of course we want this agreement if we can get it.

It depends on Hamas.

It’s really their decision now,” he told US broadcaster Fox News.

USA puts pressure on Israel

Israel's war cabinet approved the outlines of an agreement over the weekend that calls for a six-week ceasefire for the release of around 40 hostages.

According to the Reuters news agency, an Israeli delegation made up of employees of the military and the Mossad secret service flew to Qatar to, among other things, check the identities of imprisoned Palestinian fighters who Hamas wanted to exchange for hostages.

Israel is under pressure from its key ally, the United States, to agree to a ceasefire soon to avert an impending Israeli attack on Rafah.

More than half of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million residents have sought refuge in the city on the border with Egypt.

vet/dpa/Reuters