US participates in renewed Israel-Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo

Talk about how to ceasefire in Gaza can be implemented were restarted in Cairo on Thursday, a US official confirmed.

President Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, is attending as part of the US delegation to Egypt and Israel. The discussions cover a number of technical issues, including security frontier between Gaza and Egypt, the Rafah crossing and withdrawals of the Israel Defense Forces from Gaza and the Philadelphi corridor. CIA Director William Burns he is also expected to travel to the region as talks may stretch into the weekend.

secretary of state Antony Blinken told reporters that during his three-hour conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week, Israel agreed to the plan. The secretary said he is presenting to the IDF “a very clear schedule and locations for withdrawals.” However, since they spoke, Netanyahu has made public remarks contradicting the statement.

Implementation details on the key technical aspects involved are still very challenging, but the US continues to hope that the final “bridge” proposal it presented last week will lead to a breakthrough. On Thursday, Qatar did not participate in that part of the hostage diplomacy and cease-fire efforts, although it is still a party to the broader negotiations.

The US, Qatar and Egypt refer to their proposal as a ceasefire agreement, but technically it would begin with a six-week pause in fighting in what would be Phase One. During this time, some hostages were to be released and Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli detention centers.

An agreement would follow to begin talking about a lasting ceasefire, and during this extended pause in fighting, other stimulus measures would be taken, including the release of several hostages.

This bridging agreement would be an agreement between Israel and Hamas to start talking about ending the war. During his trip to the region, Blinken summarized the proposal as “hostages are released, prisoners are exchanged, and negotiations begin on the conditions necessary for a lasting ceasefire.”

The Biden administration claims that the bones of the package presented by the US, Qatar and Egypt had already been accepted by Israel in principle and that President Biden he had explained the package to the public in May. This hostage and cease-fire deal is the centerpiece of Biden’s strategy to reduce tensions across the region.

On a related note, Qatar’s prime minister is expected to travel to IRAN on monday. Earlier this week, Iran indicated to CBS News that it is closely monitoring the talks as it decides whether to retaliate against Israel for the assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

“Iran’s response must be carefully calibrated to avoid any possible negative impact that could influence an eventual ceasefire,” according to an emailed statement from a spokesman for the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN.

Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield outlined some of President Biden’s other goals during remarks to the U.N. Security Council. She said the Gaza deal would include the release of all hostages, a vaccination campaign to stop the spread of polio and the restoration of services, including water and electricity, to Palestinian civilians displaced from the Gaza Strip. She also said she would stop the fighting in Lebanon. Blinken also recently said a deal would help ease tensions in the Red Sea.

In remarks before the UN Security Council on Thursday, Thomas-Greenfield called on Hamas to agree to the deal and called on Israel to work with aid agencies to provide polio vaccines to Palestinian civilians, especially children in Gaza. Tensions in the Palestinian West Bank are also high, and the ambassador has urged Israeli authorities to intervene to stop violent Jewish settler attacks against Palestinian civilians and hold perpetrators accountable.

contributed to this report.