CAIRO: Negotiations to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza war will resume in Doha on Wednesday, with the intelligence chiefs of Egypt and the United States attending along with Qatari and Israeli delegations, Egypt’s state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV said.
The Egyptian security delegation in Doha will be “on a mission to bring viewpoints closer between Hamas and Israel in order to reach a truce agreement as soon as possible”, Al-Qahera News quoted a senior source as saying.
“There is an agreement over many points,” the source said, adding the negotiations will be back in Cairo on Thursday.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns met in Cairo on Tuesday, the presidency said in a statement. Sisi “affirmed the Egyptian position rejecting the continuation of military operations in the Gaza Strip,” it said.
Egypt and Qatar have been spearheading mediation in the nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in hopes of ending the fighting and securing the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Senior US officials were in the region to push for a ceasefire after Hamas made concessions last week, but the Palestinian militant group said a new Israeli assault on Gaza on Monday threatened truce talks at a crucial moment, and it urged mediators to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sisi stressed in his meeting with Burns the need to take “serious and effective steps” to prevent the expansion of the Gaza conflict in the wider region, the presidency statement said.
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