Israelis in Cairo for Gaza Talks Amid Ongoing Disputes

Israeli negotiators were in Cairo on Friday for discussions regarding a potential Gaza truce, according to a spokesman, though disagreements over Israeli troop presence on Gaza’s southern border remain a key sticking point.

David Barnea, head of the Mossad spy agency, and Ronen Bar, chief of the Shin Bet domestic security service, were in Cairo for negotiations aimed at advancing a hostage release deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP on Thursday night.

Egypt, along with fellow mediators Qatar and the United States, is working to broker an agreement to end more than 10 months of conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group in Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region this week, stressing that time is running out for a deal, which “needs to get done in the days ahead.”

On Friday, witnesses reported ongoing combat in Gaza’s north, heavy shelling in the center, and tank fire near the southern city of Rafah.

The United Nations reported that tens of thousands of civilians have been forced to flee this week from Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis in the south after Israeli military evacuation orders, which usually precede military operations.

The war has displaced approximately 90 percent of Gaza’s population, many of whom have been forced to move multiple times, leaving them without shelter, clean water, and other essentials as diseases spread, according to the U.N.

“Civilians are exhausted and terrified, moving from one destroyed place to another with no end in sight,” said Mouhannad Hadi, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, on Thursday.

“This cannot continue,” he emphasized.

On Friday, the Israeli military reported that its troops had “eliminated dozens” of militants around Khan Yunis and Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

In April, the military had pulled troops out of Khan Younis after months of intense fighting, but they have now had to resume operations there, leaving civilians feeling trapped.

“Every time we find somewhere to stay, we get a new evacuation order two days later. This is no way to live,” said resident Haitham Abdelaal.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel, which killed 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

In response, Israel launched a military campaign that has killed 40,265 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the health ministry run by Hamas, which does not specify whether the dead were civilians or militants. The U.N. rights office reports that most of the casualties are women and children.

Palestinian militants also captured 251 hostages, of whom 105 remain in Gaza, including 34 whom the military believes are dead.

This week, the Israeli military recovered the remains of six hostages from a tunnel in the Khan Younis area, with bullets found in their bodies, indicating they had been shot. An investigation is ongoing into the circumstances of their deaths, a military spokesman said.

Diplomatic efforts have intensified to secure a Gaza truce and prevent a broader conflict following the killings of two senior Iran-backed militants, which have led to threats of retaliation from Tehran and its allies, who blame Israel.

Accepting the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in Chicago, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stated that “now is the time to finalize a hostage deal and a ceasefire agreement.”

The negotiations are based on a framework proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden in late May, which he described as an Israeli initiative.

The three-phase plan would initially involve exchanging hostages for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, during what Biden called a “full and complete ceasefire” lasting six weeks.

Israeli forces would withdraw from “all populated areas of Gaza,” according to the plan.

During his regional visit, Blinken said Netanyahu had accepted a U.S. “bridging proposal” for a truce that “clearly outlines the schedule and locations” for the Israeli withdrawal.

However, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported that “the Americans realized the mistake” in Blinken’s remarks about Netanyahu accepting the proposal.

Netanyahu’s office, whose hard-right coalition depends on the support of members opposed to a truce, dismissed as “incorrect” media reports suggesting that Netanyahu had agreed to withdraw Israeli forces from the Philadelphi corridor.

The prime minister considers control of the corridor along the Egyptian border essential to prevent Hamas from rearming.

Hamas has expressed support for the plan Biden initially outlined. However, it also claimed that the U.S. bridging proposal “caters to Netanyahu’s conditions” and accused him of “blocking an agreement.”

Hamas, in a statement, pointed to Netanyahu’s “insistence on continuing to occupy” the Philadelphi corridor and two other locations as a major obstacle to a deal.

Iran-aligned groups across the Middle East have threatened increased retaliation against Israel, although they have already been drawn into the conflict for months.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire along their border, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched numerous missile and drone attacks against shipping in nearby waters crucial to global trade.

On Friday, the Philippines urged its seafarers to avoid the Red Sea after sailors from a European Union naval mission rescued the mostly Filipino crew of an oil tanker attacked by Houthis in the Red Sea.

U.S. forces destroyed two Houthi drones over the Red Sea and another drone in a rebel-held area of Yemen, Central Command said on Thursday.