The United States and key mediators Egypt and Qatar are intensifying efforts to push Israel and Hamas toward a cease-fire deal to end 10 months of fighting triggered by Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Hamas, a U.S. designated terror group, has signaled it won't attend the latest round of talks scheduled in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Thursday.
"We expect to be told by the mediators that Israel has accepted what is being offered, and any meeting should be based on talking about implementation mechanisms and setting deadlines rather than negotiating something new," said Hamas political officer Osama Hamdan.
The White House is projecting confidence that the talks will happen.
"There's always political posturing. We see this all the time in advance of talks, that's not new," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday during her press briefing.
However, President Joe Biden has admitted that peace is elusive.
"It's getting hard," he told reporters Tuesday when asked if a cease-fire and hostage release deal is becoming a more distant possibility.
"We'll see what Iran does, and we'll see what happens if there's any attack," he said. "But I'm not giving up."
Many fear escalation
Reaching a truce in Gaza is key to holding back Tehran's expected attack on Israel in retaliation for the recent killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil. Israel did not claim responsibility for the killing but is widely blamed for Haniyeh's death.
Biden said he expects Iran to hold off its strike if a deal is reached in the next few days.
With fighting between Israel and Hamas raging in Gaza and cross-border fire intensifying between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, many fear a large-scale Iranian attack would trigger wider conflict in the Middle East.
"There is no more time to waste, and there's no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay," U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein said in Beirut on Wednesday. "The deal would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon, and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war."
Other officials are also engaging in intensive diplomacy this week. White House coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk will travel to Cairo and Doha, and CIA Director William Burns also will travel to Doha.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed his departure to the region, originally scheduled for Tuesday.
To bolster deterrence, the U.S. has deployed additional military assets to the Middle East, including squadrons of F-35C and F-22 Raptor jet fighters, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and the USS Georgia submarine.
Israel blames Hamas
Israel has agreed to participate in a new round of talks Thursday. However, for weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's own security officials and negotiators have accused him of stalling by reintroducing demands that had previously been eliminated.
Netanyahu's office denies the claim.
"It is Hamas that continues to set additional terms and has refused to reach an agreement," government spokesperson David Mencer said.
As first reported by The New York Times this week, Israel in late July presented mediators with less flexible conditions compared with the set of principles it had offered in late May.
"There are people who insist that Israel has deliberately stepped it up because it would prefer to drag its allies into a regional conflagration so as to provide the maximum amount of support to Israel," said Mirette Mabrouk, director of the Egypt program at the Middle East Institute.
"This would be just a very, very bad idea," she told VOA.
Iran keen to avoid war
Boxed into a corner with its vows of retaliation, Iran also may be looking for an off-ramp to avoid a wider war, said Michael Singh, the managing director and Lane-Swig senior fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy.
"If it backs down, it will sort of be seen in the region, and maybe within Iran, to have backed away in the face of U.S. threats," he told VOA. "However, if it goes ahead with its plan, then it may find itself in a war that it can't win."
Iran's mission to the United Nations has denied reporting that Tehran is considering sending a representative to Doha to engage in behind-the-scenes discussions with the U.S. while cease-fire negotiations proceed.
The White House has not responded to VOA's request to confirm whether Iran would play an indirect role in talks.
Pressure on Israel
While the White House denies that domestic politics is a motivating factor in the cease-fire talks, Democrats are keen to avoid the optics of massive anti-war demonstrations as the party gears up for its national convention on Monday.
That is when Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will be celebrated as the Democratic presidential ticket to rival former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, the Republican ticket in the November election.
Progressives, young voters, Arab and Muslim Americans and others in the Democratic electorate have urged Biden to do more to pressure Israel to stop its campaign.
Laura Blumenfeld, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, suggested that Biden could tell Netanyahu, "Game over. What's coming down the pike, whether it's President Harris or President Trump, there isn't going to be the same kind of long leash for you. So, it's time to kind of wrap it up and bring about a new era."
That new era is regional integration for Israel in return for Palestinian statehood. But that's way down the line. Cease-fire in Gaza remains the elusive first step.
"Right now, the region is on the verge of an explosion, and Israel will be on the receiving end of that firepower," Blumenfeld told VOA. "The president can leverage this moment and say, 'We have your back, but now we need to see something from you in exchange, which is some compromises.'"
Nearly 40,000 people have died in Israel's campaign in retaliation for the 1,200 people killed and 250 people captured by Hamas on October 7. Palestinian health officials say the war casualties are mostly women and children, while Israel says the majority are combatants.
Biden has not used what many say would be the most effective leverage — withholding American weapons. On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department announced it has approved an additional $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles.
VOA’s Carla Babb and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
