The discussions, which began Tuesday and were expected to be held over three days, are focused on a framework that would pause fighting for six weeks. CIA Director William J. Burns met with Israeli intelligence chief David Barnea and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi separately on Tuesday as part of the talks.
“According to our side, the Egyptian side, it is very positive,” said a former Egyptian defense official briefed on the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject. He said sticking points include the number of hostages that would be released, and how many Palestinians would be freed from Israeli prisons in return.
In addition, Hamas wants Israeli forces to withdraw outside of Gaza’s cities during the pause and “to secure the corridors to let Palestinians go from the north to the south or from the south to the north,” the former official said. They are also pushing for Israeli surveillance planes and drones to be prohibited from flying over Gazan cities during the truce.
Egypt and Qatar are in direct contact with Hamas, which is “trying to be more flexible this time,” the former official insisted. The militant group initially said it would not negotiate without a permanent cease-fire, but now it seems willing to accept a time-limited pause in fighting. “So now we are very positive,” the former official added. “All the minor things can be solved.”
But a diplomat in Cairo who was briefed on the talks described them as “inconclusive” so far. The biggest hurdle is the “guarantees that Hamas requires in order to be sure that if a cease-fire is signed, then it will be respected,” according to the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.
The diplomat said the chief sticking point on the Israeli side is related to the list of names of Palestinian prisoners Hamas wants released. The Israeli delegation left the talks on Tuesday night, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said only a change in Hamas’s position would bring progress, calling the group’s demands “delusional.”
The prospect of a major assault on Rafah in Gaza has set off global alarm bells, with U.S. officials expressing opposition to such an operation and the United Nations warning that an already disastrous humanitarian situation in southern Gaza would deteriorate substantially.
“Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, warned in a statement Tuesday. “The international community has been warning against the dangerous consequences of any ground invasion in Rafah.”
South Africa, which filed a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, said Tuesday that it had made an urgent request for the court to intervene to prevent harm to civilians from an “unprecedented military offensive against Rafah.”
The prime ministers of Spain and Ireland sent a joint letter Wednesday to the European Commission warning of the risk of a “humanitarian catastrophe posed by the imminent threat of Israeli military operations in Rafah.” The two leaders pressed the European Union to undertake an urgent review of whether Israel was complying with its obligations to respect international human rights law.
The prospect of an Israeli incursion into Rafah has also ratcheted up tensions with Egypt, which were already high as displaced Palestinians crowded along the border. Cairo staunchly opposes any displacement of Palestinians into northern Sinai, worrying that hosting refugees on its territory would bring security risks and make Egypt complicit in the permanent dislocation of Palestinians from Gaza.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 28,500 people and wounded nearly 70,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack that began the war, and it says at least 232 of its troops have been killed since its ground offensive began.
As hunger, disease and desperation spread among civilians in Gaza, the number of aid trucks able to enter the besieged enclave has dropped in recent days after Israeli protesters blocked crossing points. Demonstrators closed down the Nitzana crossing point — where humanitarian aid coming from Egypt through Rafah is inspected — on Wednesday, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops continued to battle militants in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, which Israel describes as a Hamas stronghold. Israeli forces warned displaced people who had been sheltering inside the city’s Nasser Hospital to evacuate the premises. Hazem Bahloul, a doctor at the hospital, said in a WhatsApp message that the army began issuing the instructions in the early morning Wednesday. Bahloul said between 5,000 and 7,000 displaced people are leaving the hospital.
“Everyone capable of moving must leave the hospital, whether they are displaced or seeking medical treatment,” he said, adding that Israeli forces were permitting some patients and medical staff to stay behind and had pledged to provide food and supplies.
“The troops opened a secure route to evacuate the civilian population taking shelter in the area of the Nasser Hospital toward the humanitarian zone,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Wednesday, adding that the evacuation was “being conducted in a controlled and precise manner.”
The Israeli army began to surround the hospital last month, with fierce fighting in the area making it unable to accept new patients. The IDF alleged in late January that Hamas militants were “operating from inside and around” Nasser Hospital. International doctors volunteering there said they had seen no sign of militant activity on the premises.
In recent days, the situation at the hospital has grown increasingly dire. Seven Palestinians were killed and 14 were injured by sniper fire in the hospital’s courtyard, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday. Israel also attacked nearby buildings, causing fires that spread and destroyed the hospital’s storage sites for medical supplies, the ministry added, and sewage water was flooding the emergency department.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said that Israel had denied two WHO missions access to the hospital over the past four days, and that the organization had lost touch with medical staff there.
“Civilians killed, orders to evacuate people seeking shelter, the northern wall demolished: I am alarmed by what is reportedly happening at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza after being under siege for around a week,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza. It must be protected. Humanitarian access must be allowed.”
The Palestine Red Crescent Society also said “intense shelling was taking place” around al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, damaging the health facility.
Fighting also intensified Wednesday along Israel’s northern border, after a morning attack launched from Lebanon into Israel struck a house and an IDF base. One Israeli woman was killed, and at least eight people were injured, said Ilana Stein, spokesperson at the National Public Diplomacy Directorate, who placed the blame on Hezbollah rocket fire. “This can no longer be our reality,” she said.
Israel launched a fierce volley of attacks in response, striking locations in southern Lebanon and killing at least four civilians, the Lebanese civil defense said.
Beatriz Ríos in Brussels, Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv, Sarah Dadouch in Beirut and Heba Farouk Mahfouz in Cairo contributed to this report.