Behind the scenes

• The sources said the meeting took place after Sullivan returned from That of President Biden trip to South America.
• Sullivan and Waltz discussed several national security and foreign policy issues, including the war in Gaza and the issue of hostages held by Hamas, the sources said.
• Sullivan and Waltz declined to comment.

In the spotlight

• Ten days ago, when President Biden hosted Trump for a two-hour meeting in the Oval Office, he raised the issue of hostages and offered to work together to reach an agreement.
• “I don’t care if Trump gets all the credit as long as they go home,” Biden told the families of US hostages during a meeting with them just hours after his conversation with the president-elect, according to two sources close to the file. details.

Behind the scenes

• When President Isaac Herzog called Trump to congratulate him on his election victory, he told the US president-elect that the release of the 101 hostages held in Gaza was “an urgent matter”, according to three people briefed on the conversation.
• “You have to save the hostages,” Herzog told Trump, who responded by saying that as far as he knew, most of the hostages were probably dead.
• President Herzog informed Trump that Israeli intelligence estimates that about half of the hostages, or around 50, are still alive.
• “Trump was surprised and said he didn’t know,” a source familiar with the conversation said. Two other sources briefed on the call confirmed that Trump expressed his belief that most of the hostages were dead.