U.S. officials are in the Middle East continuing their pursuit of an elusive ceasefire deal ahead of Election Day that would end Israel’s wars against Hamas and Hezbollah.
CIA Director William Burns, who has led the United States’s mediating efforts on the Israel-Hamas war, was in Cairo on Thursday to meet with Egyptian leaders, while President Joe Biden’s Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, and his envoy on the conflict with Hezbollah, Amos Hochstein, held talks in Israel.
The U.S. officials are pushing the administration’s “support for deescalation backed by deterrence in the region more broadly,” according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Officials have pursued various frameworks for a deal between Israel and Hamas, though the mediators, which include the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt, have been unable to come up with a proposal that satisfies both sides.
Hamas is still holding about 100 hostages, whom the U.S.-designated terrorist group kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the current war. In total, Hamas terrorists have killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others. Hamas has not released any of its hostages since the conclusion of a weeklong ceasefire that took place in late November 2023.
It’s unclear exactly how many of the hostages are still alive. Seven Americans are believed to be held by Hamas.
Mediators believe there is an opportunity for progress in getting a deal agreed upon following the assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack, who U.S. officials identified as the primary obstacle to getting a ceasefire agreement finalized.
Sinwar “wasn’t willing to negotiate any further,” Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said earlier this week, but it’s unknown whether Hamas will be more amenable to a deal without Sinwar at its helm.
“Hamas has a process it goes through to select new leadership,” Miller added. “It appears to be going through that process now. We obviously don’t have a great deal of insight to Hamas internal decision-making, but based on our conversations in the region, our understanding is that Hamas is being run by a council now and, at some point, will go through a process to select a new leader, and I think the results over the next few weeks will determine whether there has been a change in their posture.”
Early in the summer, negotiators sought for both sides to agree to a ceasefire deal, the first phase of which would last for about six weeks. However, now they are pursuing a deal that would stop hostilities for a shorter period of time. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said last Sunday that a new proposal calls for a two-day ceasefire, during which Hamas would release four Israeli hostages.
A major sticking point in the negotiations has been whether the agreement would be indefinite. Hamas wants Israel to agree to end the war completely, while Israeli leaders have reiterated their opposition, arguing that making the concession would allow Hamas to reconstitute and regroup.
McGurk and Hochstein met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to discuss the war with Hezbollah, which has lasted for more than a year, with Israeli forces dramatically escalating their attacks over the last two months or so to take out most of the group’s senior leaders.
“In the north, there’s a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion,” said Israeli General Staff Chief Herzi Halevi last week, indicating Israeli forces could be nearing the completion of their objectives in Lebanon.
Israel evacuated more than 50,000 people who live in northern Israel last October due to concerns that Hezbollah could conduct a similar cross-border raid to the one Hamas conducted. Hezbollah began firing projectiles into northern Israel a day after Hamas’s attack. Those civilians remain displaced, and Israeli officials have said setting the conditions to allow them to return to their homes is a main objective of their operations.
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“Prime Minister Netanyahu made it clear that the main point is not this or that agreement on paper but Israel’s ability and determination to enforce the agreement and thwart any threat to its security from Lebanon in a manner that will return our residents securely to their homes,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, U.S. Central Command commander, also traveled to Israel this week. U.S. forces were deployed to Israel to operate an advanced air defense system earlier this month to prepare for a possible Iranian attack, given the two sides have exchanged aerial attacks.