President Joe Biden said late Thursday night that the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, on Wednesday “has not helped” as he urged all sides to move toward a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza.
Asked how worried he was about whether the death of Haniyeh would make a ceasefire deal more difficult, Biden said that he was “very concerned.” He added that he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day that they had “the basis for a ceasefire. He should move on it, and they should move on it now.”
Biden made his remarks in the presence of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee to succeed him. She did not disagree with him or contradict his statement about the death of the terrorist leader.
Haniyeh, who died a billionaire and is personally responsible for thousands of deaths, had lived a life of luxury under the protection of the government of Qatar and in close proximity to a major U.S. military base there. He had been one of the Hamas leaders negotiating indirectly with Israel, through Qatari, Egyptian, and American intermediaries, for the release of Israeli hostages abducted during the October 7 terror attack, in blatant violation of international law.
Though the two sides reached a deal for a temporary pause in fighting in November, during which Hamas released most of the children, women, and elderly prisoners, the terrorist group broke the truce and went back to fighting.
In it desperation to reach a deal, the Biden administration dropped the crucial demand that a ceasefire be linked to the release of hostages. Israel still acquiesced, though amid protest from right-wing members of the Israeli cabinet.
In late May, Biden announced a plan that the administration admitted was “virtually identical” to the Hamas proposal, and the terror group still rejected it. Biden himself had blamed Hamas for the failure to reach a deal.
Israel continued to fight, rescuing four hostages and recovering the bodies of several more, while also killing senior Hamas leaders, including Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who was confirmed dead earlier this week.
In reply to a reporter who asked whether prisoner swaps created incentives for taking more Americans hostage, Biden said: “I don’t buy this idea that we’re going to let these people rot in jail because other people may be captured.” He said that the threat of abductions had existed “for all of history,” and that Americans had a duty to obey warnings from the government about which countries not to visit.
Harris hailed the prisoner swap as a victory for “diplomacy.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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