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CNN —Efforts to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza and broker a prolonged pause in fighting are at an important juncture as President Joe Biden deploys his point person on hostage talks to Europe for multiparty talks on the contours of a possible agreement. He said on Friday, Biden had spoken to Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi as well as Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to discuss ongoing hostage talks. “We continue to do everything we can to facilitate another hostage deal just like we did back in November,” Kirby said. Each stage would come with a pause in fighting and the delivery of aid to the North and South of Gaza. The White House on Thursday reiterated its gratitude for Qatar — which has acted as a key mediator in hostage talks — in response to the leaked recording.

Persons: Joe Biden, Bill Burns, David Barnea, Abbas Kamel, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Burns, Barnea, John Kirby, “, ” Kirby, Biden, Abdel Fatah al, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Al Thani, Kirby, Brett McGurk, ”, Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Netanyahu, Netanyahu’s, Betsy Klein, Katie Bo Lillis Organizations: CNN, CIA, White House, Qatari, White, National Security, Hamas, Biden, Qatar Locations: Gaza, Europe, Israel, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al, France, Washington, Qatar, Egypt, South, Palestinian, Gulf

U.S. officials said Israel’s apparent willingness to agree to a cessation of hostilities in return for the release of more hostages being held in Gaza has created a new opening for negotiations. Any new deal would likely include phased releases of hostages, though the White House is hoping that a more ambitious one, possibly leading to the release of all of the remaining hostages, might be possible. The talks were mediated by Qatar, which was negotiating with Hamas, as well as by Egypt. At least some of the officials last met in Warsaw in December, but those discussions stalled over Hamas’s insistence that the remaining hostages be released in exchange for a permanent cease-fire and larger prisoner releases. Israel rejected any permanent cease-fire and was pushing for a shorter pause in fighting.

Persons: William J, Burns, David Barnea, Barnea, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim, Abbas Kamel, Israel Organizations: Qatari, Hamas Locations: Europe, United States, Gaza, Israel, Qatar, Egypt, Thani, Warsaw

☆ The C.I.A. director heads to Qatar for talks on hostage releases.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Julian E. Barnes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

director, was scheduled to arrive in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday for a new round of negotiations aimed at freeing more hostages held in Gaza, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Burns and David Barnea, the head of the Mossad, Israel’s spy service, are scheduled to meet with Qatari officials. Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political leadership in Doha, has been a mediator in the talks between Israel and Hamas. One U.S. official said Mr. Burns’s talks in Qatar would be meant to build on that agreement. Mr. Burns traveled to Doha on Nov. 9 as he and Mr. Barnea held talks with Qatari officials who have been working on the issue.

Persons: William J, Burns, David Barnea, Israel, Burns’s, Barnea Organizations: Qatari, Hamas, Qatar, One U.S Locations: Doha, Qatar, Gaza, Israel, One

☆ C.I.A. Director Visits Israel and the Middle East Amid Israel-Hamas War
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-05 | by ( Julian E. Barnes | More About Julian E. Barnes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

director, arrived in Israel on Sunday for discussions with leaders and intelligence officials, the first stop in a multicountry trip in the region, according to U.S. officials. The United States is also looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Israel, providing information that could be useful about hostage locations or any follow-on attacks by Hamas. As one of the Biden administration’s most trusted voices on Middle East issues, Mr. Burns has become something of a roving troubleshooting diplomat for the White House. While the United States and Israel have blamed Hamas for the explosion, Hamas has said Israel is responsible. Mr. Burns has a particularly close relationship with King Abdullah.

Persons: William J, Burns, Israel, Burns’s, Antony J, Blinken, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden, Netanyahu’s, America’s, Jordan, King Abdullah II, King Abdullah, King Hussein, Abdullah, Mr Organizations: Israel, U.S, Mr, Biden, White, American Locations: Israel, United States, Gaza, Iraq, Palestinian, U.S

☆ ‘The American Buffalo’ Review: Ken Burns’s Western Elegy
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-15 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A bison in Montana in 2019 Photo: Craig Mellish/PBSAs recounted during Ken Burns ’s two-night, four-hour “The American Buffalo,” an Irish peer named Sir St. George Gore embarked on a hunting trip to the American West in the mid-1850s, bringing along 50 people, six wagons, 21 carts, 112 horses and 50 dogs. He spent about a quarter of a million dollars en route to killing 1,500 elk, 2,000 deer, more than 1,000 antelope, 500 bear and 4,000 bison. He was so “wanton,” we are told, he even offended the frontiersmen who spent their days butchering wildlife. When he attempted to breach the Black Hills of South Dakota, the tribes there told him to go, or fight.

Persons: Craig Mellish, Ken Burns ’, ”, St, George Gore Organizations: PBS Locations: Montana, American Buffalo, American, South Dakota

In the most detailed public account yet given by a U.S. official, the director of the C.I.A. offered a biting assessment on Thursday of the damage done to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by the mutiny of the Wagner mercenary group, saying the rebellion had revived questions about his judgment and detachment from events. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual national security conference, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, said that for much of the 36 hours of the rebellion last month, Russian security services, the military and decision makers “appeared to be adrift.”“For a lot of Russians watching this, used to this image of Putin as the arbiter of order, the question was ‘Does the emperor have no clothes?’” Mr. Burns said, adding, “Or at least ‘Why is it taking so long for him to get dressed?’”Mr. Burns’s remarks on the Kremlin’s paralysis during the uprising carried out by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin and his mercenary group built on comments a day earlier from his British counterpart, Richard Moore, the chief of MI6, who said the rebellion showed cracks in Mr. Putin’s rule.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Wagner, William J, Burns, “, Mr, Burns’s, Yevgeny V, Prigozhin, Richard Moore, Putin’s Organizations: U.S, Aspen Security Forum Locations: Russia

☆ What America Gave My Father—And What He Gave Back
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Jon Hilsenrath | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

It was a foggy September morning in 1941 when he approached Ellis Island on the deck of a boat called the Serpa Pinto. An 11-year-old Jewish refugee separated from his parents, he had spent two years shuttling through French orphanages in flight from the Nazis. Remembering the sight of the statue 80 years later, he was still stirred by his first enchanted vision of freedom. The country has a long history of conflict over newcomers that is at odds with its image of itself as a welcoming melting pot. “The U.S. and the Holocaust” recounts exhaustively the migration barriers and public bigotry that plagued desperate Jewish people seeking refuge in the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s.

☆ What America Gave My Father—and What He Gave Back
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Jon Hilsenrath | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

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