Negotiations to secure a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel progressed Friday in Cairo and will continue over the coming days.
CIA Director William Burns and Brett McGurk, the National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, both of whom have been heavily involved in the U.S. negotiating delegation, traveled to Cairo on Friday to continue making progress toward a deal.
“There has been progress made,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday. “We need now for both sides to come together and work towards implementation. The preliminary talks that we had going into Cairo last night were constructive in nature. So we want to see that same sort of momentum continue here over the next couple of days.”
The American, Egyptian, and Qatari governments have acted as mediators between Israel and Hamas since the conflict began. The U.S. delegation coordinates with the Israeli negotiators but does not communicate directly with Hamas, rather Egypt and Qatar do.
The negotiators made progress in talks last week during meetings in Doha, Qatar. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to the Middle East and stopped in Israel, Qatar, and Egypt to meet with leaders last weekend and early this week.
President Joe Biden “stressed the urgency of bringing the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure” during a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, according to a White House readout of the call, and “discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles.”
Blinken, in Israel on Monday, announced that the Israelis had agreed to the bridging ceasefire proposal, and he called on Hamas to do the same. The next major hurdle for each side to overcome is how the parties will implement the aspects of the deal.
“The process is actually moving forward,” Kirby said. “It’s moving forward in the way we had outlined earlier in terms of these next rounds of talks. Now what’s critical is that everybody participate in these talks.”
This iteration of fighting began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas overwhelmed the Israeli border and thousands of militants stormed into southern Israel and proceeded to murder approximately 1,200 people, many of whom were civilians, and kidnap roughly 250 others. More than 200 of the victims were killed at an outdoor concert.
Israeli leaders, in the aftermath of the largest terrorist attack in the country’s history, vowed to return the hostages, destroy Hamas’s military capabilities, and remove the group from power in Gaza. Hamas has been in power there for more than 15 years.
The Israeli military has carried out a devastating campaign against Hamas, decimating much of Gaza’s infrastructure. Hamas’s ranks have been depleted, and several of their leaders have been killed, though one of the masterminds, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to be evading Israeli forces in Gaza by hiding in the group’s extensive underground web of tunnels resembling a metro system.
More than 40,000 people have been killed during the war, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, though that number is disputed and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The Israeli military recently announced that 17,000 Hamas fighters have been killed and has claimed that the ratio of civilians and combatant deaths is 1-to-1, given the complexities involved in both urban warfare and Hamas’s strategy of using civilians as human shields.
The overwhelming majority of Palestinians have been displaced during the war and now face significant threats of disease and malnutrition.
Hamas still holds about 100 of the 250 hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7. Thirty-six still held are believed to be dead, CNN reported, citing data from the Israeli Government Press Office. A handful of the hostages are Americans. Israel and Hamas agreed to a weeklong ceasefire deal in late November 2023 in which about 100 hostages were released.
Getting a new deal agreed upon has repeatedly eluded mediators, and one has not gotten over the finish line since that first one despite significant efforts.
Biden laid out the framework for the proposed ceasefire deal back in late May, and mediators are now looking at a revised version of it. The initial proposal included three phases, the first of which would last six weeks and would include the cessation of fighting, the removal of Israeli forces from densely populated Gazan areas, a surge of humanitarian aid into the Strip, and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in exchange for the release of a couple dozen hostages.
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The second phase would include the release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces. The final phase would include the beginning of the reconstruction of Gaza in exchange for the release of the bodies of any deceased hostages.
An apparent sticking point in the negotiations is Israel’s insistence that it maintain a presence at the Philadelphi Corridor, which is the border between Gaza and Egypt. Israeli forces have found several tunnels seemingly going between the two countries used for smuggling weapons and individuals to and from.