Biden Says Netanyahu is Not Doing Enough to Free Hostages in Gaza

President Biden issued a one-word rebuke on Monday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to reaching a cease-fire and hostage release deal, the latest iteration of the White House’s monthslong effort to cajole and censure the Israeli leader.

As he exited Marine One on the White House lawn on the way to a meeting of his national security team, Mr. Biden was asked a series of questions by waiting reporters about whether Mr. Netanyahu was doing enough to achieve a deal to get the hostages back. The president responded simply: “No.”

But as the advisers briefed Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, whose every utterance on the Israel-Hamas war is being examined for evidence that she is ready to shift administration policy, it became clear that far more than just Mr. Netanyahu’s own political calculations was getting in the way of a preliminary hostage exchange and six-week cease-fire.

While administration officials say that they have locked down 90 percent of the 18-paragraph-long preliminary accord, Hamas has still not approved a final list of which hostages would be released, and who would be released in a first phase. In return, Israel would release a large number of Hamas fighters and other prisoners.

Among those who had been expected to be freed were several of the six Israeli and American hostages who were executed over the weekend, apparently after their captors feared that an Israeli rescue operation was underway. One of them was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual American and Israeli citizen who had lost an arm trying to protect others during the Oct. 7 terror attack that precipitated the Israel-Hamas war.

Hamas has demanded that all Israeli forces be withdrawn from the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land, less than 9 miles long, on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Mr. Netanyahu has said Israeli troops must remain in the corridor to prevent the movement of weapons and ammunition to Hamas.