US President Joe Biden ended a White House press conference abruptly on Monday to “go to the situation room” to deal with another “issue”.
“I have to go to the situation room. There’s an issue I need to deal with,” Biden said.
The president left the event on economy inside the White House complex as reports of two more hostages being released by Hamas came in.
?? President Biden: “I have to go to the situation room. There’s an issue I need to deal with.”
— Biden at the end of remarks on the economy pic.twitter.com/QDzdBFcLui
— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) October 23, 2023
At the event, Biden said any discussion on a Gaza ceasefire would happen only after Hamas frees all hostages it seized when it launched a barrage of rockets toward Israel from the Gaza Strip.
“We should have those hostages released and then we can talk,” Biden said when asked if he would support a “hostages-for-ceasefire” deal, reported news agency AFP.
Biden also spoke about a call he had with Pope Francis on Sunday about the Israel-Hamas war and the situation in Gaza.
“The pope and I are on the same page, he was very very, very interested in what we were doing,” he said, adding that he had “laid out to him what the game plan was” regarding US support for Israel.
On Monday, two Israeli women were freed by the Hamas group, days after Judith Tai Raanan and her daughter Natalie Shoshana Raanan, both American, were released.
Israel on Monday increased the number of confirmed hostages to 222.
