Biden Pushes For New Cease-Fire Deal In Gaza, Criticizes Israeli Officials Who Want To ‘Keep Fighting For Years’

President Joe Biden pushed for a new cease-fire deal Friday that included a hostage exchange and an end to Israeli hostilities in Gaza, and he criticized some Israeli leaders who he said wanted to “keep fighting for years.”

The president’s remarks seemingly left the door open for Hamas to remain the governing authority in Gaza — a sticking point for Israel, which has rejected cease-fire deals that didn’t include destroying the group or removing it from power. Hamas has said it would not take part in negotiations amid Israeli military operations, though it said Thursday that it was “prepared to reach a comprehensive agreement” that included an end to the war.

On Friday, Israeli officials confirmed that the country’s military forces were on the ground in central Rafah, a southern city that had previously become a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Israel Defense Forces advancing in the north. Biden had previously said an invasion into Rafah would mark a red line that, if crossed, would lead the United States to stop supplying weapons to Israel, but he made no mention of such a line on Friday.

More than 36,000 Palestinians have died in the war since Oct. 7, when militants from the Gaza Strip surged into Israel, killing an estimated 1,200 people and taking hundreds of hostages. The toll of Israel’s retaliatory military operation became even clearer Sunday when an Israeli strike killed dozens of Palestinians seeking refuge in a tent camp in Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called that strike a “mistake,” but other Israeli strikes have since killed dozens more Palestinians at tent camps near a field hospital and a United Nations facility, underscoring the ongoing danger to