Officials announced today, Tuesday, that Israel and Hamas are making progress toward another ceasefire agreement and the release of hostages, as negotiations continue amid Israel's threat to expand its offensive to Rafah in the southern part of Gaza, where approximately 1.4 million Palestinians have taken refuge.
On Tuesday, the Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, the head of Israeli Intelligence (Mossad), David Barnea, and the Qatari Prime Minister Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani met with Egyptian officials in Cairo to discuss the ceasefire stance in the Gaza Strip, according to the Egyptian media.
The talks in Egypt come a day after Israeli forces freed two hostages in Rafah, the crowded southern city along the Egyptian border, in a raid that resulted in the deaths of at least 74 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and caused significant destruction. The operation offered a glimpse of what full ground progress might look like.
A senior Egyptian official stated that the mediators had achieved "relatively significant" progress in Cairo for representatives from Qatar, the United States, and Israel. The official noted that the meeting would focus on "drafting a final version" of a six-week ceasefire agreement, with assurances that the parties will continue negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire.
William Burns, the CIA director, and David Barnea, the head of Mossad, attended the Cairo talks. Both men played a key role in mediating the previous ceasefire. A Western diplomat in the Egyptian capital also indicated that a six-week agreement is on the table but cautioned that further work is needed to finalize the agreement. The diplomat mentioned that Tuesday's meeting will be crucial in bridging the remaining gaps. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to discuss sensitive negotiations with the media.
The New York Times reported that the negotiations in Cairo focus on the release of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire. The newspaper noted that mediators are trying to reach an agreement that halts the war, amid growing international concerns over an Israeli plan to continue the ground assault on the border city of Rafah, which is nearly the last stronghold for displaced persons moving from the north and central parts of the Gaza Strip to the south, while Egypt rejects any option of displacing Gazans from their land.
The report also mentioned that President Biden sent CIA Director William Burns to join the talks, who stated he had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders in Egypt and Qatar "to move the matter forward."
The Guardian quoted a Western diplomat in Cairo stating that there is a proposed ceasefire lasting up to six weeks on the table after Netanyahu rejected a proposal from Hamas. According to Reuters, Hamas's draft proposal included a ceasefire in the first stage lasting 45 days, during which all Israeli detainees, the elderly, the sick, and males under the age of 19 would be released in exchange for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.
The first phase of the proposal also includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza and the initiation of a process to build hospitals and refugee camps. The second phase of the Hamas proposal involves exchanging the remaining Israeli detainees for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. In the third phase, both sides would exchange the bodies of the deceased.
