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Biden urged a broader effort to emerge from the crisis with a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Washington:
US President Joe Biden said Friday’s release of a first group of hostages taken by Hamas was just a “start” and that there were “real” chances to extend a temporary truce in Gaza.
Speaking to reporters in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he was spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his family, Biden also said it was time to “renew” work on creating a two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
A total of 24 hostages — 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and a Filipino — were turned over Friday to the ICRC in Gaza by Hamas, while Israel freed 39 women and minors held in its prisons, the Qatari foreign ministry said.
In addition, a four-day truce to facilitate the hostage and prisoner releases was holding.
Biden, who led US efforts to secure the pause in the brutal fighting between Israel and Hamas militants controling Gaza, said “I think the chances are real” for extending the truce.
He welcomed the way the start of the process had gone, saying, “this morning I’ve been engaged with my team as we began the first couple days of implementing this deal. It’s only a start, but so far it’s gone well.”
And he urged a broader effort to emerge from the crisis with a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel, citing the “need to renew our resolve to pursue this two state solution.”
Hamas’s October 7 attack sparked an air and ground offensive by Israel, which has vowed to destroy the Palestinian militants.
In Gaza, nearly 15,000 people, 6,150 of them children, have been killed in the war, officials in the Hamas-run territory said.
About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel during the October 7 attack and around 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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