Washington reports 'progress' in Gaza truce talks

Photo: Eyad Baba Agence France-Presse Palestinians walk through a cloud of dust created by an Israeli strike on a building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

Agence France-Presse in the Gaza Strip

Published yesterday at 1:56 PM Updated yesterday at 11:45 PM

• Middle East

Washington reported “progress” on Friday in talks in Cairo toward a truce in the Gaza Strip that would include the release of hostages, as the war between Israel and Hamas continues unabated.

US President Joe Biden, who is pushing for a ceasefire deal, spoke by phone with the leaders of the two Arab countries mediating the negotiations, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

The heads of Mossad (Israeli foreign intelligence), David Barnea, and Shin Bet (internal security), Ronen Bar, are taking part in the negotiations, a week after a previous round of talks in Doha with the American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

According to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they are in Cairo “to advance an agreement to [release] the hostages” kidnapped and taken to Gaza during an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil, which triggered the war in the Palestinian territory.

Read also

• No respite in the war in Gaza, hopes of a quick truce fade
• Israel kills a Fatah military leader in Lebanon, hopes of a truce fade

“Constructive” discussions

CIA Director William Burns and White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk are also present, while Hamas does not not, like in Doha.

“Progress has been made. We now need both sides to come together and work toward an agreement” on the deal, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, saying reports that the talks were “close to failure” were inaccurate.

He said the talks, which began Thursday, were “constructive in nature” and hoped to see that momentum “continue” over the “next two days.”

An Egyptian source familiar with the negotiations said the heads of Egyptian and Qatari intelligence services were also taking part in the discussions.

The source said an “expanded” round of talks would begin Sunday. She presents it as “a pivotal step in the formulation of an agreement,” without giving further details.

“Gap”

“Washington is discussing with mediators new proposals to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas,” underlines this Egyptian source.

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

An Islamist movement official, Hossam Badran, told AFP on Friday that Netanyahu’s insistence that his troops remain in a strip along the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphia Corridor reflected “his refusal to reach a final agreement.”

Hamas will accept “nothing less than the withdrawal of the occupation forces [from Gaza], including Philadelphia,” he said.

Netanyahu says he is determined to keep Israeli troops in the strip, which they seized in May, “in order to prevent Hamas from rearming,” according to his office.

The Islamist movement insists on the implementation, as is, of a plan announced on May 31 by Joe Biden, which it had accepted. This provided for a six-week truce accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages, then, in a second phase, a total Israeli withdrawal from the territory.

Fighting

“I hope that these negotiations […] will lead to solutions” and “that the war will stop,” Oumm Mouhammad Wadi, a Gazan “tired” of the situation, told AFP.

The fighting raged again on Friday, with witnesses and AFP journalists reporting Israeli artillery fire and ground clashes in the center and south of the territory.

A An Israeli bombing raid on a house in western Khan Younis (south) killed eleven people, including four women and four children, and injured a number of others, the Gaza Civil Defense said early Saturday.

The Israeli military said that over the past day, Israeli troops had “eliminated dozens of terrorists and dismantled dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites” in several areas.

The war has displaced nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times, leaving them without shelter, clean water and other essentials, while disease has spread, according to the United Nations.

For the United States, a ceasefire in Gaza would help prevent a military escalation in the Middle East, where Iran and its allies – Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – accuse Israel of assassinating former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in late July and have threatened to strike back.

Strikes in Lebanon

Israel is also under pressure on its northern border, where it has been exchanging fire daily for more than ten months with Hezbollah, which has opened a front against it in support of Hamas.

On Friday, seven Hezbollah fighters, according to the Islamist movement, and a child, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon.

The war began on October 7, when Hamas commandos carried out an attack of unprecedented scale on Israeli soil that resulted in the death of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.

Of the 251 people abducted that day, 105 are still being held. in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States and the European Union.

Its army launched a major offensive in response to the attack in the Palestinian territory that has left at least 40,265 dead, according to the Hamas government's health ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed. According to the UN, most of the dead were women and minors.