Mideast conflict's impact on innocent civilians
President Biden will meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the White House on Tuesday, U.S. and Israeli officials confirmed to CBS News.
The two are expected to discuss the ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon, a statement from the Israeli president's office said on Sunday, according to Reuters.
It is expected that Ron Dermer – a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – will join Herzog in the meeting with Mr. Biden. The two presidents met at the White House in July 2023 and again in October 2023 in Tel Aviv. Netanyahu and Mr. Biden met in Washington in July 2024.
President Biden meets with the President of Israel Isaac Herzog in the Oval Office at the White House in July 2023.
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Cease-fire talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have repeatedly stalled, as have parallel efforts by the U.S. and others to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Qatar, a key mediator with Hamas, said Saturday it had suspended its efforts and would resume them when "the parties show their willingness and seriousness to end the brutal war and the ongoing suffering of civilians."
Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican who served in the first Trump administration, told "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sunday that the "environment is shifting right now" on a hostage deal after President-elect Trump's victory.
Hamas wants an agreement that ends the war and a prisoner-for-hostages deal, while Netanyahu has said the war will only stop once Hamas is eradicated.
"We will continue to defend our country and our citizens in all arenas, in the face of any threat — especially the Iranian threat," Netanyahu said Sunday.
The prime minister also said he has spoken with Trump three times in the last few days.
"These were good and very important conversations — talks designed to further tighten the strong alliance between Israel and the USA," he said. "We see eye-to-eye, the Iranian threat to all its components, and the danger posed by it. We also see the great opportunities before Israel in the field of peace and its expansion and in other fields."
Hagerty reiterated on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that Trump is focused on the "root cause" of the war in Gaza — which he said was Iran.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in the border fence and stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, and about a third are believed to be dead.
Israel's offensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and militants in their count but say more than half the dead were women and children.
Hezbollah, which is also allied with Iran, began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after. The yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to a larger conflict on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.
Iran, one of Israel's bitter foes, launched its own attack, unleashing about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel retaliated, targeting Iranian military facilities in airstrikes on Oct. 25.
Margaret Brennan and Camilla Schick contributed to this report.
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