Jake Sullivan met in-person with representatives of countries whose citizens Hamas took hostage

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan convened for the first time this week an in-person meeting of ambassadors and chief of missions representing countries whose citizens were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, CNN has learned, as a ceasefire and hostages release deal remains stalled.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan convened for the first time this week an in-person meeting of ambassadors and chiefs of mission representing countries whose citizens were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, CNN has learned, as a ceasefire and hostages release deal remains stalled. Sullivan met with representatives from 17 nations: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom, according to a US official and senior administration official familiar with the meeting. Those 17 countries, along with the United States, have citizens whom Hamas took captive at the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. The group discussed ideas to secure the release of the hostages in Gaza, with a particular focus on ways that they can speak more as a collective group in both public and private settings, according to the senior administration official. The meeting comes at a critical moment when the efforts to secure the release of hostages and Gaza ceasefire appear to have stalled once again. The ambassadors and chief of missions gathered with Sullivan brainstormed ways to exert pressure on the negotiating parties – including Israel, Egypt and Qatar – to return to the negotiating table and finalize a ceasefire agreement. One idea that was discussed was finding a way to speak as a collective voice to the United Nations, that official said. Those same 18 countries had released a statement in late April calling on the release of all hostages, warning that the fate of those individuals is “of international concern” and demanding that Hamas accept a ceasefire deal that Israel had put on the table at the time.