US State Dept: "Very Close" To Hostage Exchange Agreement

US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller has told reporters that the US is "very close" to an agreement to exchange Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners but, "not there yet."

• Miller says, "the Israeli cabinet is meeting to discuss this matter right now. We are in close conversation with them, as we are with the government of Qatar who have been helping facilitate discussions since the early days of the crisis."
• Miller warns: "I will say, the implementation and execution of an agreement, should it be reached, requires the cooperation of Hamas, a terrorist organisation, so it's why we're always hesitant to say too much before it's happened."
• The New York Times reported a short time ago: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [will] hold an unusually intense sequence of meetings with cabinet ministers in the coming hours 'in light of developments on the issue of the release of our hostages.'"
• President Biden said this afternoon at a White House meeting on Fentanyl: “We’re now very close, very close. We could bring some of these hostages home very soon. I don’t want to get into the details... But things are looking good at the moment.”
• According to the NYT, a spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry told reporters today that talks are “at the closest point we ever have been in reaching an agreement... We are very optimistic, we are very hopeful, but we are also very keen for this mediation to succeed in reaching a humanitarian truce."