
File Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls US President Joe Biden. Photo courtesy of Israel's Government Press Office (GPO)
A readout from Biden's office confirmed the call and said that the president "stressed the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the captives with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal".
Netanyahu's office said the prime minister informed Biden about how the talks were progressing.
"The prime minister discussed with the American president the progress in the negotiations for the release of our hostages and updated him on the mandate he has given to the negotiating team in Doha, aimed at advancing the release of the hostages," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
The two leaders spoke a day after Netanyahu's office announced that Israel was sending a delegation of senior officials to Qatar for the negotiations.
The announcement followed a meeting in Jerusalem with US President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, a representative of Biden and senior Israeli officials.
Netanyahu's office confirmed to AFP on Sunday that the delegation, which includes the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet internal security agency, had arrived in Doha.
For more than a year, the United States has been mediating talks alongside Qatar and Egypt for a deal to end the war in Gaza and release the remaining captives.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called the latest developments "a historic opportunity to secure the release of all our loved ones".
"Leave no stone unturned and return with an agreement that ensures the return of all hostages, down to the last one," it said in a statement on Saturday.
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas resumed last weekend in Qatar.
Trump previously warned Hamas that there would be "hell to pay" if the captives were not released by his inauguration on January 20.
Since Oct.7, 2023, the Israeli brutal military campaign on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 46,565 people, most of them women and children, with more than 109,660 others injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry's latest figures.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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