Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Friday that an agreement to free hostages held in Gaza and establish a cease-fire was close, as administration officials prepared for what they expected to be a tense visit to Washington next week by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
But he acknowledged that working out the details, including providing security inside Gaza and developing a postwar plan to govern the territory and allow in more relief supplies, had taken far longer than expected.
Asked if the hopes of creating a Palestinian state were still alive, Mr. Blinken jokingly quoted Senator John McCain of Arizona, saying, “It’s always darkest before it goes completely black.”
Mr. Blinken and Mr. Sullivan both spoke about sustaining commitments to Ukraine, though they talked around the biggest threat to that financing: The possibility that Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, would be elected in November and halt the American aid.
Before the NATO summit last week, an orchestrated American campaign to provide Europe with intelligence about the Chinese effort resulted in a strong and rare European statement demanding that Beijing stop.
U.S. officials also said this week that Russia, in response to American support to Ukraine, was contemplating sending arms, including ship-killing missiles, to the Houthis in Yemen, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
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