Israel is dispatching a hostage negotiating team to Rome, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday amid reports that CIA Director William Burns would hold talks there on Sunday on a deal.
“We’re dispatching a team,” Netanyahu told reporters during his meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Sources said Burns would meet Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Egyptian Intelligence Chef Major General Abbas Kamel, and Mossad Chief David Barnea.
When asked if he thought a deal was close to completion, Netanyahu said, “I hope so. Time will tell. We are certainly eager to have one. We are working on it.”
“There has been some movement because of the military pressure that we exerted. I hope it will be sufficient to get the deal completed.”
Trump added, “It's a very tough situation. The hostages have to be given back immediately… It’s not an acceptable situation.
Broad agreement on the importance of a deal for releasing hostages
The importance of a deal to secure the release of the remaining 115 hostages is one of the issues on which there is broad agreement between Trump, his rival in the race for the White House Vice President Kamala Harris, and US President Donald Trump.
It was one of the top agenda items in Netanyahu’s meeting with the three US politicians. He brought freed hostages and relatives of those held in Gaza with him on the plane to Washington. They joined him in Congress when he spoke at a joint session of the House and Senate.
Biden and Netanyahu also met with relatives of the eight hostages held in Gaza who hold US citizenship. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose Sagui, 35, is held captive, told reporters after the meeting, “There is more reason today, but in any time since the last round of plastic releases, that something can happen.”
Alongside those talks, however, the IDF recovered the bodies of five of the Gaza hostages believed to have been taken to the enclave after they were killed on October 7 during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on that day.
Netanyahu wanted to wait to send a delegation to the negotiations until he had consulted with Biden in Washington, to ensure that the Israeli and US positions were aligned on the talks and that there was “no daylight” between them.
Israeli believes that a unified stand with the US is an important factor in helping to sway Hamas to finalize the three-phase deal, which Biden first unveiled on May 31 at the White House.
A Western official, a Palestinian, and two Egyptian sources said that Israel seeks changes to the deal. An Israeli official rejected such reports, emphasizing that Israel was adhering to Biden’s framework for a deal.
Israel has, however, emphasized key points that it believes fall within the scope of that framework, including retaining military control of the Philadelphi Corridor and seeking to maximize the number of live hostages that would be freed in the first phase of the agreement.
Biden on Friday spoke by phone with Jordan's King Abdullah and updated him on "ongoing efforts to secure a hostage release and ceasefire deal, and preparations for a surge in humanitarian assistance during a ceasefire period," the White House said.
Biden, during his meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday, "expressed the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza," the White House said."The President also raised the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the need to remove any obstacles to the flow of aid and restoring basic services for those in need, and the critical importance of protecting civilian lives during military operations," it added.
Reuters contributed to this report.