“We need a ceasefire,” Biden says.

President Biden said Tuesday that talks on a possible six-week ceasefire in Gaza are “currently in the hands of Hamas.” He spoke just before a Hamas leader in Lebanon appeared to reject a proposed deal that the United States supports, insisting that Israeli hostages would not be released until a ceasefire was established and Israeli forces had withdrawn. withdrawn.

Mr Biden said the Israelis had “cooperated” in the indirect negotiations, which are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt, and that “a rational offer” had been made.

“We’ll know in a few days what’s going to happen,” Biden said as he returned to the White House from a weekend at Camp David, where he prepared for his State of the Union address scheduled for Thursday. “We need a ceasefire.”

Mr. Biden’s comments echoed comments made earlier in the day by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and on Monday by Vice President Kamala Harris about their meetings with a member of Israel’s war cabinet, Benny Gantz, who is in Washington was for a visit that was not coordinated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The urgency for a breakthrough in the talks has increased as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approaches, with all sides viewing the holiday as a deadline. Ramadan, a month of prayer, introspection and fasting from sunrise to sunset, is one of the most important times in the Muslim calendar. A sustained Israeli military attack over the holidays could further inflame Arab-Israeli tensions.

The war is now approaching the five-month mark. Large parts of Gaza are in ruins, more than 30,000 people have been killed by Gaza health officials’ count, and severe hunger, bordering on famine, is affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

Yet there was little sign that Hamas, the armed group that rules Gaza, was willing to compromise. In Beirut, Lebanon, a senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, on Tuesday reiterated the group’s demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire before Israeli hostages would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

“The security and safety of our people will only be achieved with a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal from every inch of the Gaza Strip,” Mr Hamdan said. “There can be no prisoner exchange until all this is accomplished.”

Mr Hamdan said Hamas had made its position clear to the Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

At a meeting with Mr Blinken, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, said Qatar and its partners would persevere “to ensure that this deal happens, despite who also tries to undermine the efforts. of bringing peace.”

“We want an end to humanitarian suffering; we want to see the hostages back with their families,” he said said on Tuesday.

Before the Hamas news conference, Mr Biden was asked whether a ceasefire was possible before the start of Ramadan, which has often been accompanied by heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions over access to a key holy site in Jerusalem.

“There has to be a ceasefire,” Mr. Biden said, adding that if an agreement to pause the fighting is not reached during Ramadan, “it will be very dangerous.”

He added: “So we are trying very hard to reach a ceasefire.”