President Joe Biden revealed a major update on the Gaza ceasefire talks Friday.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after he signed a proclamation to designate the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument, he explained why he had been late.
'I was dealing with the ceasefire effort in the Middle East,' the president said.
'We are much closer than we've ever been,' he continued. 'I don't want to jinx anything. We may have something. But we're not there. We're much, much closer than we were three days ago.'
Biden then added, 'So keep your fingers crossed.'
He didn't provide further details on the ongoing negotiations to stop the war in Gaza.
President Joe Biden said Friday 'we are much closer than we've ever been,' about getting a ceasefire deal to stop the war in Gaza
A senior administration official said Friday afternoon that they believe they have a workable ceasefire-for-hostages deal and that the talks scheduled in Egypt next week are aimed at concluding the deal.
'We will be reconvening in Cairo at this level before the end of next week with the aim to close out this process once and for all,' the senior administration official said.
The framework builds on what Biden laid out in May, but negotiators from the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have filled in some of the blanks.
'It is basically the May 27 text with some clarifications based upon subsequent discussions and some of the details on implementation,' the senior administration official said. 'So this is a comprehensive arrangement. It has been negotiated for months and we do believe very strongly, and there's momentum here in this process, to work to bring this to conclusion.'
The official said a major reason to get the deal done was to save the lives of Israeli hostages still being kept captive in Gaza.
'We want to save the lives of hostages, get the hostages out of Gaza. And if you continue to negotiate for months and months and try to get a perfect deal, for every last drop of blood from the stone, you risk having no hostages left to save,' the official said.
'And that is not acceptable to us. I think it's not acceptable to anybody. It's not acceptable to the Israelis,' the source said.
Smoke billows over Gaza on Friday after an Israeli attack. The U.S., Egypt and Qatar met this week to work on a ceasefire-for-hostages deal, which they hope to finalize in Cairo next week
Politically both Biden and former President Donald Trump are on the same page about wanting the war to end - but Trump has made it clear that he's more on the side of the Israelis.
During his long-winded press conference Thursday at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort, Trump said he had last spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the leader's visit in late July to Mar-a-Lago
'He knows what he's doing, I did encourage him to get this over with,' the Republican nominee said. 'It has to get over with fast ... Get your victory and get it over with.'
'It has to stop, the killing has to stop,' Trump added.
Trump, however, was critical of the 'ceasefire' talk, which has been a rallying cry on the political left.
'From the start, [Vice President Kamala] Harris has worked to tie Israel's hand behind its back, demanding an immediate ceasefire, always demanding ceasefire,' Trump said at an event Thursday night, focused on countering antisemitism.
He said a ceasefire 'would only give Hamas time to regroup and launch a new October 7 style attack.'
'I will give Israel the support that it needs to win but I do want them to win fast,' the ex-president added.
Harris has been vocally critical of Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians but her campaign has said she doesn't support an Israeli arms embargo, like some progressive Democrats back.
Both Biden and Harris have been working toward the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal - which would pause the fighting and allow Israel to get their hostages back who were taken during Hamas' brutal October 7 terror attack.
The senior administration official said the work remaining to get the deal done would be 'complicated' because there are a lot of 'moving parts.'
'But we are fully behind it. The president of the United States is fully behind it. His counterparts in the region are fully behind it. And we're going to do all we can to bring this to conclusion because the lives of the hostages really can't wait anymore,' the official said.
'And we are quite confident at what this deal does - this brings relief to the civilians of Gaza and also ensures the security interests of Israel,' the source added.
