Gaza cease-fire talks to resume in Cairo, as mediators race to head off wider war

TEL AVIV, Israel — High-level talks to halt the war in the Gaza Strip ended without an immediate breakthrough Friday, but the United States, Egypt and Qatar said the negotiations would continue next week as mediators raced to secure a truce that they hope will avert a wider regional conflagration.

The announcement came after top U.S., Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials ended two days of talks in Doha, the Qatari capital, aimed at trying to resolve remaining disagreements between Israel and Hamas. U.S. and regional officials hope that movement in the negotiations will blunt or stop a widely anticipated Iranian-led retaliation for the killing of senior leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, militant groups backed by Iran.

U.S., Iranian and Israeli officials said Friday said that Iran had decided to delay its reprisal against Israel to allow the mediators to continue working toward a cease-fire in Gaza.

After the first day of talks ended Thursday night, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, called the acting Iranian foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, to encourage Iran to refrain from any escalation given the cease-fire talks in Doha, according to two Iranian officials and three other officials familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Al Thani spoke with Bagheri Kani again Friday, and both officials “stressed the need for calm and de-escalation in the region,” according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry. Bagheri Kani said in a statement that the Qatari prime minister had described the cease-fire negotiations Thursday as being at a “sensitive” phase.

On Friday, Egypt, Qatar and the United States said in a joint statement that the mediators had presented Israel and Hamas with “a bridging proposal” consistent with the terms laid out by President Joe Biden on May 31 and later endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

“This proposal builds on areas of agreement over the past week, and bridges remaining gaps in the manner that allows for a swift implementation of the deal,” the statement said. All three governments characterized the talks in Qatar as “serious, constructive and conducted in a positive atmosphere.”

Speaking at the White House on Friday, Biden said: “We are closer than we have ever been. I don’t want to jinx anything.” He added: “We are not there yet. But it’s much, much closer than it was three days ago.”

Biden also spoke with the emir of Qatar and, separately, with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt to review the progress made in Doha on the Gaza cease-fire and hostage-release deal.

Senior officials will convene next week in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in the hopes of finalizing the deal based on the terms laid out in Qatar, the joint statement said. In the meantime, lower-ranking officials will continue to hammer out technical details on how the cease-fire proposal would be carried out, Egypt, Qatar and the United States said.

Details of the bridging proposal were not immediately known. But Biden previously described a three-phase plan that would free the remaining hostages seized during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, and would ultimately lead to the “cessation of hostilities permanently” and the rebuilding of Gaza.

In a statement Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel continued to blame Hamas for blocking a deal. But he has also stiffened Israel’s terms for an agreement in recent weeks, including calling for Israeli troops to remain on the Gaza side of the territory’s border with Egypt to prevent Hamas from rearming itself.

“Israel appreciates the efforts of the U.S. and the mediators to dissuade Hamas from refusing a hostage-release deal,” Netanyahu said. “Israel’s fundamental principles are well known to the mediators and the U.S.” He added that Israel hoped that the pressure would lead Hamas to accept an Israeli proposal outlined in May.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli or Hamas officials on whether they would participate in the upcoming talks in Cairo.

Hamas officials, who have accused Netanyahu of bargaining in bad faith, did not participate directly in the talks in Doha. But two Hamas officials said Friday that mediators had updated the group on the negotiations. The officials said, without elaborating, that the current proposal did not conform to terms the group had agreed to last month.

Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, said in a televised interview that “none of the points of contention” had been resolved in Doha. “Israel either added new conditions, or asked for new wordings or complicated matters,” Hamad told Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese broadcaster seen as closely aligned with Iran and its allies. “There was no advancement.”

The push for a cease-fire has taken on heightened significance as the region braces for Iran to retaliate after an explosion in its capital, Tehran — widely attributed to Israel — killed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader. Hezbollah, Iran’s armed ally in Lebanon, also has promised to avenge the death hours earlier of a senior commander, Fouad Shukur, in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

A cease-fire in Gaza, U.S. and Middle Eastern diplomats have said, could help persuade Iran and Hezbollah to rein in their promised strikes. Israel has vowed to respond powerfully to any attack on its territory, potentially dragging the region into an escalatory spiral.

As of Friday, Israeli intelligence had assessed that Iran and Hezbollah had lowered the level of alertness in their rocket and missile units, according to five Israeli officials. Israel now believes the Iranian-led response will take place at a later date, the officials said. Still, officials cautioned that their information and assessments were rapidly changing given the fluidity of events.

Over the past few days, international diplomats have shuttled across the region trying to head off a larger conflict. The United States has also sent additional combat aircraft, an aircraft carrier and a guided-missile submarine to the region, as it vows to defend Israel in the event of an attack.

On Friday, Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, called on his country’s allies to threaten Iran more directly.

“The right way to deter Iran and prevent war is by announcing that if Iran attacks, they will stand with Israel not only in defense, but also in striking targets in Iran,” Katz said in a statement after he met with his British and French counterparts in Jerusalem.

A senior U.S. official said that it would be “ironic” if Iran launched an attack that would derail a deal to end the fighting and bring home the hostages. He said that when it came to support for a cease-fire deal, Iranian leaders had “an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.”

Adding to the international pressure, the World Health Organization and UNICEF on Friday asked all parties to the war in Gaza to observe humanitarian pauses to allow more than 640,000 children in the territory to be vaccinated against polio. The request came as the first case of polio in the enclave in many years was confirmed by the Gaza Health Ministry.

The WHO said the risk of the disease spreading was high because the war had prevented many children from receiving routine vaccinations.

Next week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to arrive in Israel for more diplomatic talks, including a meeting with Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Biden said in a statement Friday that Blinken was traveling to the Middle East in part “to underscore that with the comprehensive cease-fire and hostage release deal now in sight, no one in the region should take actions to undermine this process.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2024 The New York Times Company