Reaching a Gaza ceasefire deal is still realistic, U.S. President Joe Biden said at the White House on Friday, telling reporters: "We have to keep at it."
Asked about the impact of fighting elsewhere in the region, Biden also said: "We have to make sure that the people of northern Israel as well as southern Lebanon are able to get back to their homes, and get back safely."
Biden said he was "working" on allowing people to return to their homes on the tense Israeli-Lebanon border, in his first comments on the situation since a wave of pager and radio blasts targeting the Hezbollah militia.
Biden told reporters at the start of a cabinet meeting he wanted to "make sure that the people in northern Israel as well as southern Lebanon are able to go back to their homes, to go back safely."
"And the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, our whole team are working with the intelligence community to try to get that done. We're going to keep at it until we get it done, but we've got a way to go," Biden said
