The Biden administration is ready to work with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign-policy team on securing the release of the hostages Hamas continues to hold in the Gaza Strip, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor, said on Wednesday.
Speaking with reporters at the White House press briefing, Sullivan said he had met on Tuesday with the families of hostages who asked him about achieving a deal before U.S. President Joe Biden leaves office in January.
“They asked me this question, and I was very simple and emphatic with them. ‘Yes, of course, we’re prepared to work with the incoming team, in common cause, on a bipartisan basis, to do everything in our collective American power to secure the release of the hostages, both living and deceased,’” Sullivan said.
Biden met with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, but Sullivan said that the two and their teams had yet to discuss hostage-related negotiations.
“We have not had the opportunity to engage with the incoming team yet,” Sullivan said. “We are very much willing to do so, and we’ve sent a signal to the incoming team that we’re prepared to work with them on this issue, as with every other issue, because President Biden’s cardinal direction to us is: Ensure a smooth and orderly transition.”
Since Trump’s election on Nov. 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he has had three phone calls with the president-elect.
Sullivan said that the contacts between the president-elect and the Israeli prime minister have not diminished the Biden administration’s engagement with Jerusalem, which included a meeting between Sullivan and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer on Tuesday.
“We had a detailed discussion about every element of the current situation in the Middle East, and it was a constructive discussion,” Sullivan said. “We are still actively working in support of our common efforts to push back against our common adversaries, to try to deal with the situation in Gaza, in Lebanon, and directly with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
With fewer than 70 days left in office, the Biden administration continues to try to seek concessions from Israel about humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, Sullivan said.
“We extracted further commitments from the Israeli side over the course of the past couple of days,” he said. “We want to see those commitments followed through on.”
“Whether it’s humanitarian assistance, or it’s ensuring the defense of Israel against Iranian attacks, or it’s working on ceasefire efforts and a hostage deal in Gaza or it’s ultimately bringing a diplomatic resolution to Lebanon, which we’re actively working on, we’ll continue to do that every day that we have remaining in office,” he said.
