Axios revealed on Saturday that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told foreign ambassadors in Washington on Wednesday that the United States believes Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar withdrew from hostage talks last week in hopes of increasing pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza, two sources told the site. .

Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a potential hostage deal that could lead to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza reached an impasse last week after several days of talks in Cairo and Doha.

The website says, “President Biden, CIA Director Bill Burns, (National Security Advisor) Sullivan, and other senior US officials have personally participated in efforts to reach an agreement regarding the hostages taken by Hamas while it attacked Israel on October 7.”

The White House believes that the hostage deal is the only viable path to a ceasefire in Gaza, and perhaps ending the war, which has become a political problem for Biden within his Democratic Party before the presidential elections.

The website says that Sullivan met on Wednesday with the ambassadors of 17 other countries that have citizens detained by Hamas.

It is noteworthy that most of these detainees, who hold citizenship from the 17 countries, are also Israelis, a number of whom serve in the Israeli army.

Hamas claimed that it withdrew from the hostage talks last week due to the Israeli military operation at the Rafah crossing. Hamas saw the operation as an escalation of the war while the talks were taking place in Cairo.

But Sullivan told the ambassadors that US officials concluded that Hamas had already withdrawn from the talks because Sinwar — who calls the shots for the movement in the negotiations — did not want to reach an agreement now, the two sources said.

Sullivan said the United States believes Sinwar made the decision to withdraw from the talks in the hope that this would increase international pressure on Israel to end the war.

He added that there is a need for more pressure on Hamas, but stressed that military pressure is not enough, and urged the ambassadors to exert more pressure on the movement to return to negotiations and accept the hostage deal, according to the sources, calling on their countries to send this message to Hamas either directly or via Third parties or via public messages.

Brett McGurk, President Biden's senior Middle East adviser, secretly visited Doha on Wednesday and met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to discuss resuming hostage talks, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

Sullivan is scheduled to visit Israel on Sunday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and hostage talks are expected to be among the main issues they will discuss.