NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden is dispatching more senior aides to the Middle East in the next few weeks to clinch a Gaza ceasefire deal that has eluded his administration for over a year, a senior aide said on Tuesday.
U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said there is increased energy towards such a deal after another one was reached between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah group.
"We believe that there is a momentum in that process; that momentum increased when we and our partners achieved a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon," Finer said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York.
"There's new energy in this," he said.
He did not specify which officials were going to the region or what progress they have made towards a deal that has been elusive for months. Israel, the Gaza militant group Hamas and a range of third parties have been involved in negotiations.
Gunmen led by the Palestinian militant group Hamas killed some 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages back to Gaza when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. More than 44,700 Palestinians have been killed in the 14-month-old retaliatory Israeli military campaign on Gaza, Gaza health authorities say.
The latest flurry of diplomatic activity in the region comes in the final weeks of Biden's presidency, before he hands over power to President-elect Donald Trump in January.
Biden's team is in touch with Trump's on regional issues, Finer said, which also include the collapse of Syria's government and efforts to secure the release of the American journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing since being abducted in the country more than a decade ago.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Trevor Hunnicutt, Editing by Heather Timmons, Franklin Paul and Alistair Bell)
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