Foggy Bottom has “cautious optimism” about discussions about a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, “though very much tempered by realism,” Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, said during the department’s press briefing on Tuesday.
The optimism is “tempered by the realism of the past several months, where we have been close before, where you have heard us describe this as being inside the 10-yard line,” Miller said, “but then finding those last 10 yards are the most difficult because, for various reasons, the two parties have not agreed to a final deal.”
Washington continues “to engage with the mediators” and “the mediators continue to engage with Hamas and with Israel,” according to Miller.
“Based on the remaining issues, we should be able to get to an agreement,” he said. “We should be able to bridge the disagreements between the two parties, but that is not to say that we will. Because again, there have been times before where we were close and we thought the differences were bridgeable, and ultimately, we didn’t get a deal.”
Later in the press briefing, Miller responded to a question, in which Said Arikat, Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalem-based newspaper Al-Quds, claimed that Israel was deliberately bombing unarmed civilians.
“We are calling on Israel to reach a ceasefire agreement, and that’s what we continue to work for,” Miller said. “We have not called for them to unilaterally disarm against an enemy that is still committed to the destruction of Israel.”
“We believe it needs to be a negotiated ceasefire that ends this war. We don’t believe that Israel should unilaterally end the war while Hamas not only continues to threaten the state of Israel, but still holds citizens of not just Israel but—I will remind you—seven United States citizens that continue to be held hostage in Gaza,” Miller added.
“So no, we don’t support a unilateral disarmament,” he said. “We support a negotiated ceasefire, and we continue to work to try and reach one.”
