U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he made it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the two-state solution is the only way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that occupying Gaza would be a "big mistake."
Biden told reporters that he is doing everything he can to free those held captive by the "Hamas" movement in Gaza, but this does not mean sending the U.S. military.
Earlier this week, Biden told reporters that his message to the hostages is "wait, we are coming," which raised questions about what he meant.
When asked to clarify the statement, Biden said at a press conference, "What I meant is that I am doing everything I can to get you out. I am coming to help you, to get you out. I do not mean sending soldiers there... I was not talking about the military."
The U.S. president confirmed that he continues to work on this issue and will not stop until the captives are freed, including a three-year-old American child.
Biden said that "Hamas" committed war crimes by establishing a military headquarters in a hospital, and while the movement denies this, Biden said he will not disclose Washington’s intelligence information regarding its use of Gaza hospitals. Biden added that the Israeli operation will stop when "Hamas" is no longer able to do terrible things to Israelis, and that Tel Aviv is obligated to exercise the utmost caution in pursuing targets.

The U.S. president expressed "moderate optimism" about the possibility of Israel and "Hamas" reaching an agreement on the release of hostages.

During a press conference at the conclusion of a four-hour summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Woodside, California, Biden responded to a question about how close they are to reaching an agreement on the release of hostages, "I don’t want to jump the gun because I don’t know what happened over the past four hours, but we had great cooperation from the Qataris."

The Israeli army carried out an operation yesterday, Wednesday, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza before withdrawing its soldiers and tanks from the medical complex, which sparked international concern and criticism regarding the fate of patients and thousands of besieged civilians.

The United Nations Security Council broke its silence yesterday, Wednesday, for the first time since the war erupted between Israel and the "Hamas" movement, calling for "ceasefires and large-scale, urgent humanitarian corridors for a sufficient number of days" to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.

The Israeli army accuses "Hamas" of using Al-Shifa Hospital as a military base, while the movement denies that.
For its part, Qatar, the main mediator in

the negotiations for the release of hostages held by "Hamas," called for an "international investigation" into the Israeli strikes on hospitals in Gaza and described the operation at Al-Shifa facility as a "war crime."

The war broke out after "Hamas" attacked Israeli territories on October 7, an unprecedented attack since Israel's establishment. About 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and about 240 were taken hostage, according to authorities. Israeli bombing caused 11,500 deaths, mostly civilians, including 4,710 children, according to the "Hamas" government.

Despite international pressures, the Israeli Prime Minister warned that "there is no place in Gaza we will not reach, no place to hide or shelter."

Netanyahu added while inspecting a military base in southern Israel, "We will reach Hamas and eliminate it and bring back the hostages," confirming that these are "two main missions" in the ongoing war, amid pressure from the hostages’ families on Netanyahu’s government through a five-day march demanding an agreement on their release.

Since November 5, according to the United Nations, about 200,000 Palestinians have been displaced from northern Gaza Strip, large parts of which have turned into rubble, after Israel opened "evacuation corridors."

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 1.65 million of the Gaza population have been displaced from their homes due to the war, out of a total of 2.4 million people.