US Hopes for ’Israel’-Hamas Ceasefire Deal by Week’s End

By Staff, Agencies

The US’s special envoy for the West Asia region Steven Witkoff stressed that he hopes "Israel", which has been waging a nearly 21-month-long genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, and Hamas will reach a ceasefire agreement by the week’s end.

Witkoff made the remarks on Tuesday, saying the deal was hoped to usher in a 60-day ceasefire period.

He said it was expected to feature the Palestinian resistance movement’s release of as many as 10 living "Israeli" captives and the bodies of nine others.

The official, however, stopped short of explaining the benefits of such a potential deal for Palestinians in the coastal sliver, who have lost more than 57,500 of their loved ones, mostly women and children, to the brutal "Israeli" onslaught.

Witkoff, meanwhile, sufficed to claim that differences between the two sides had been narrowed down from four issues to only one.

US President Donald Trump, met with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday and Tuesday too, with Gaza allegedly forming the centerpiece of their talks.

According to Hamas and even the entity’s own officials, including former chief of "Tel Aviv’s" Shin Bet spy agency, Ronen Bar, Netanyahu would, following the breakdown of the ceasefire, keep sabotaging any subsequent negotiations aimed at reviving the process.

Netanyahu has been widely denounced for trying to prolong the war as a means of ensuring his political longevity by claiming that only through continuation of the warfare would the entity be capable of returning those of its captives, who remained in Gaza.

The resistance movement, though, has so far reported the deaths of many of the captives during indiscriminate "Israeli" assaults, saying the fatalities proved the falsehood of Netanyahu’s claim.