White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made clear on Sunday during an appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation, that Hamas was at fault for the failure of the ceasefire and hostage negotiations and not Israel.
Asked if he thought there would be a deal before the end of President Joe Biden's term, Sullivan answered: "Prime Minister Netanyahu will make his decisions, and he'll speak to his decisions. Here's what I see.
He clarified: "First in Gaza, it really, today, is not Israel that is standing in the way of a ceasefire and hostage deal. It is Hamas. Israel has said it's prepared to do a temporary ceasefire for a number of hostages and then try to build on that to get all of the hostages home, Hamas has said no."
The advisor continued: "What I will tell you is, whatever Hamas is saying publicly, what they are communicating to the mediators is no, we will not do a ceasefire and hostage deal at this time.
"So what we need to do is get the rest of the world to continue to increase pressure on Hamas to come to the table, to do a deal in Gaza, because the Israeli government has said it's prepared to take a temporary step in that direction."
Regarding Lebanon, he added: "We have been actively engaged in discussions with the Israeli government. Those should remain behind closed doors, but we do believe that at some point the Israeli government wants to do a deal that gets its citizens back home. I don't think it's doing that deal for American politics. I think it's doing that deal to try to secure Israel, and I expect that in the coming weeks, we will see progress in that direction."
Asked about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the US pressure on Israel to take action on the matter, Sullivan said: "What you have seen from Secretary Austin and Secretary Blinken is a letter to their Israeli counterparts that says, here is a set of steps we expect you to take, and we are going to measure you against the progress you are making towards those steps. This week, we will make our judgments about what kind of progress they have made. And then Secretary Austin, Secretary Blinken, the President will make judgments about what we do in response, and I'm not going to get ahead of that."