Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said Hamas and Israel were in the final stages of drawing up a ceasefire deal.
Using an American football analogy, Mr Blinken said the goal was in sight.
“I believe we’re inside the 10-yard line and driving towards the goal line on getting an agreement that would produce the ceasefire, get the hostages home and put us on a better track to try to build lasting peace and stability,” Mr Blinken told the Aspen Security Forum.
“We also know that with anything, the last 10 yards are often the hardest.”
He said some issues remained unresolved, which still "need to be negotiated".
White House National Security Council adviser Jake Sullivan later seconded those remarks, adding that "there are some technical details to be worked out about the phase one to phase two sequence" of the ceasefire deal.
"I have learnt the hard way never to use the word 'optimism' in the same sentence as the Middle East. And so what I will say is that I think we have our best opportunity now that we have had since the last brief hostage deal in November," Mr Sullivan said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to visit Washington next week, where Mr Sullivan says discussions with President Joe Biden will focus strictly on those negotiations.
The US officials were speaking in Colorado for the final day of the forum. A group of about 15 protesters gathered at the entrance to the resort where the conference is taking place, accusing the Biden administration of enabling genocide.
Asked about what global crises aren't getting enough attention, Mr Blinken pointed to the civil war in Sudan.
"Sudan right now is probably the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and yet it's not getting the attention it deserves," Mr Blinken said.
On Iran, Mr Blinken reiterated previous US government assessments that Tehran could now produce fissile material for nuclear weapons within one or two weeks, if it chose to.
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Profile
Company name: Jaib
Started: January 2018
Co-founders: Fouad Jeryes and Sinan Taifour
Based: Jordan
Sector: FinTech
Total transactions: over $800,000 since January, 2018
Investors in Jaib's mother company Alpha Apps: Aramex and 500 Startups
