Mr Biden added that it was up to Hamas to accept the six-week truce offer and warned Israel that Israel had no excuses for not allowing more aid shipments into the Gaza Strip.
“If there are circumstances where things drag on until Ramadan, it could become very, very dangerous in Israel and Jerusalem,” Mr. Biden told reporters.
Last week, the United States called on Israel to allow Muslims to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem during Ramadan after an Israeli minister proposed a ban on Palestinians traveling to the occupied West Bank.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that the mosque will allow the same number of Muslim worshipers to enter the first week of Ramadan as in previous years.
“In the first week of Ramadan, worshipers will be allowed to enter the Temple Mount in similar numbers to previous years,” the statement, which uses the Jewish term for the site, said, adding that a security assessment of the situation would be carried out each week.
Ramadan will begin on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.
After Mr. Biden’s comment, a senior Hamas official said that talks aimed at halting the war with Israel could not continue indefinitely.
“We will not allow negotiations to be open indefinitely as long as the aggression and war of hunger against our people continues,” Osama Hamdan, an official of the Islamist group in Lebanon, told a news conference in Beirut.
Egyptian officials said on Tuesday that a third day of talks in Cairo with Hamas over a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of Israeli hostages failed to produce a breakthrough.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have long been trying to reach a deal that would see Hamas release up to 40 hostages in exchange for a six-week ceasefire, the release of some Palestinians imprisoned in Israel and a flow of aid to the isolated enclave.
After ordering the US to begin flying humanitarian aid to the besieged territory of 2.4 million people last week. people, Mr. Biden also said he was pressuring Israel to let in more shipments.
“I work very hard with them,” he said. – We need to deliver more aid to Gaza. There are no excuses, none.”
At least 30,631 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory during the war between the militants and Israel, according to figures provided by the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
A Hamas attack in Israel on October 7 killed around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP estimate based on official figures.
The militants also took about 250 hostages, and Israel says about 130 remain in the Gaza Strip, at least 27 of whom are believed to have been killed.
After promising to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a massive offensive in the Gaza Strip.
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2024-04-17 20:55:40