CIA Director William Burns said on Saturday in London that reaching a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas will necessitate “some hard choices and some political compromises” from both sides.
Burns said that some 90% of the proposed deal has been agreed, but that “the last 10% is the last 10% for a reason, because it’s the hardest part to do.”
He went on to say that he did not know if an agreement was close, but that a more detailed proposal would be formulated in the coming days.
The CIA chief spoke alongside his British counterpart, MI6’s Richard Moore, at a Financial Times Weekend Festival in which they discussed a number of geopolitical issues, among them Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the threat from China.
Ahead of their rare public appearance, the two men published a joint piece in the Financial Times, writing that the “SIS and the CIA have exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation” regarding the war against Hamas in Gaza.
A ceasefire agreement “could end the suffering and appalling loss of life of Palestinian civilians and bring home the [Israeli] hostages after 11 months of hellish confinement by Hamas,” they stated.
A senior Biden administration official revealed during a background call with journalists on Wednesday that the deal on the table has 18 paragraphs in total, most of which have been agreed upon.
“Fourteen of those paragraphs are finished. One paragraph has a very technical fix, and the other three paragraphs have to do with the exchange of prisoners to hostages, which even Hamas’s own text of July 2 explicitly says … has to still be negotiated,” he added.
The precise details of the disagreement were not disclosed in the call.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed reports suggesting that an agreement is close.
“There’s a story, a narrative out there that there’s a deal out there,” the premier said in an interview with Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” on Thursday.
“In fact, while we agreed in May, in July and in August to a deal, an American proposal, Hamas has consistently said no to every one of them,” he said.
“They don’t agree to anything. Not to the Philadelphi Corridor [on Gaza’s border with Egypt] not to the [key issue] of exchanging hostages for jailed terrorists, not to anything,” he added.
According to the premier, Hamas only wants Israel Defense Forces troops to withdraw “so they can retake Gaza and do as they vowed to do,” namely, “again the butchering, again and again and again.”
