News - Middle East: The US’s special envoy for the West Asia region says he hopes the Israeli regime, which has been waging a nearly 21-month-long genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, and Hamas will reach a ceasefire agreement by the week’s end.

Steven Witkoff made the remarks on Tuesday, saying the deal was hoped to usher in a 60-day ceasefire period.

He said it was expected to feature the Palestinian resistance movement’s release of as many as 10 living Israeli captives and the bodies of nine others.

The official, however, stopped short of explaining the benefits of such a potential deal for Palestinians in the coastal sliver, who have lost more than 57,500 of their loved ones, mostly women and children, to the brutal Israeli military onslaught.

Witkoff, meanwhile, sufficed to claim that differences between the two sides had been narrowed down from four issues to only one.

US President Donald Trump, who met with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, said he was expected to meet the Israeli prime minister on Tuesday too, with Gaza allegedly forming the centerpiece of their talks.

A ceasefire deal between the Israeli regime and Hamas took effect in January, lasting no longer than March 18 after the regime not only began to violate the deal, but also escalated the genocide and tightened its 2007-present siege on Gaza to draconian levels.

According to Hamas and even the regime’s own officials, including former chief of Tel Aviv’s Shin Bet spy agency, Ronen Bar, Netanyahu would, following the breakdown of the ceasefire, keep sabotaging any subsequent negotiations aimed at reviving the process.

The Israeli premier has been widely denounced for trying to prolong the war as a means of ensuring his political longevity by claiming that only through continuation of the warfare would the regime be capable of returning those of its captives, who remained in Gaza.

The resistance movement, though, has so far reported the deaths of many of the captives during indiscriminate Israeli assaults, saying the fatalities proved the falsehood of Netanyahu’s claim.

In May, Israeli paper Ha’aretz reported that at least 20 of the captives had been killed in Israeli assaults since the onset of the war.

Also in May, Hamas released Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American trooper it had captured, in a move that could enable amelioration of the situation in Gaza.

The United States, however, has ever since stopped short of pressuring the regime, its most important regional ally, into either softening or ceasing its aggression.

Following Alexander’s release, Hamas’ officials said Witkoff had personally assured them that Washington would pressure the regime to end the siege and permit humanitarian access within two days of Alexander’s release, but stopped short of living up to the pledge.

Source: Press TV