Biden hopes for Gaza deal by next week, lasting through Ramadan

U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday he hoped a ceasefire in Gaza could start by the beginning of next week, adding that Israel was ready to halt operations during the Muslim month of Ramadan as part of any deal.

"Ramadan's coming up and there's been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out," Biden said in an interview with late-night comic Seth Meyers on the U.S. network NBC.

In a protracted bid to bring about a truce, Egypt, Qatar, the United States, France and others have acted as go-betweens for Israel and Hamas, with negotiations ongoing.

They are seeking a six-week halt to the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel sparked the war.

A deal could include the release of several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel, media reports suggest.

"My hope is by next Monday we'll have a ceasefire," said Biden on Monday, when asked when an agreement could start, adding that "we're close, we're not done yet".

An unnamed Israeli official told news site Ynet the "direction is positive".

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani — whose country hosts Hamas leaders and helped broker a one-week truce in November — is due in Paris this week, according to the French presidency.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed any truce deal would delay, not prevent, a ground invasion of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, which he said was necessary to achieve "total victory" over Hamas.

With Israeli ground troops operating in every other major urban area of the Gaza Strip nearly five months into the war, an estimated 1.4...