The head of the CIA Bill Burns arrived last night (Wednesday) secretly in Egypt for a round of talks regarding the efforts to free the abductees. Burns held talks in Cairo today as well and arrived this evening in Doha, the capital of Qatar, for further talks on the subject.
This is a last-minute effort by the Biden administration to try to reach a hostage deal before the start of the month of Ramadan, which begins on Monday. The families of the American abductees were invited to watch the speech on the podium of the plenary session of Congress.