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White House national security spokesman John Kirby has called Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar “the major obstacle” to securing a ceasefire in recent weeks.
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Kirby addressed a Wall Street Journal report that senior U.S. officials, who had hoped for months to broker a ceasefire and hostage release deal, now believe such an agreement is unlikely before the end of President Biden’s term. The report mentioned that Hamas makes demands but “then refuses to say ‘yes’ after the U.S. and Israel accept them.”
“It’s certainly apparent to us that Mr. Sinwar remains the big obstacle here to getting a deal. And it certainly is the case that he has done nothing in the recent weeks to prove that he’s willing to move this forward in a good faith way. He is the major obstacle, no question about it,” Kirby said. “It’s tough to get them to say yes to things that he’s already said that he wanted. So it’s very, very difficult.”
He added, “But as the president said the other day, everything’s unrealistic until all of a sudden it’s not anymore. And we’re gonna keep trying at this. And this idea that we’re just throwing up our hands and ‘well, it’s not gonna happen before the end of the term,’ I can tell ya that’s not where the president is. It’s not where Jake Sullivan or Tony Blinken are. We still believe that there’s a possibility of moving this forward, and we’re gonna keep trying. Those hostages need an effort to get them home. We’re not going to give up on that.”
Kirby reiterated that while Israel has the right to defend itself, the Biden administration has also criticized how Israel is conducting the conflict. “They absolutely have a right to defend themselves. And we are still providing them the tools and capabilities to do that. But how they do it matters,” he said. “President Biden has said that, Vice President Harris has said that to our Israeli counterparts. They need to be doing it in as precise and as discriminant a way to avoid damage to civilian infrastructure and more critically, to civilian life. So it does matter a lot to us.”
When asked about the recent death of Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Kirby responded to criticism from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who suggested that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was not sufficiently supportive of Israel. “Nobody, including Secretary Austin, is shedding a tear over the death of Mr. Akil, who does have American blood on his hands. I think the world’s better for not having him walking around on the planet anymore. But that doesn’t mean we want to see a full out war. We don’t believe, again, that that’s in the best interest of the Israeli people,” Kirby said.
Akil, a top military official in Hezbollah, was on Washington’s wanted list for years. The strike followed an attack on Hezbollah communications that reportedly killed 12 and injured thousands. While Israel is suspected to be behind the attack, it has not claimed responsibility.
Kirby emphasized that the U.S. has been engaged in “intense diplomacy” to prevent further escalation along the Lebanon-Israel border, where Hezbollah has been launching rockets into Israel since October 2023. He also defended the Biden administration’s approach to Iran, stating, “Iran is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, and that’s in part, actually large part, to what President Biden has done. Six hundred sanctions alone just in this administration, 60 sanction regimes. So I don’t buy the argument that we somehow turned a blind eye and just given them cash.”
