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The US, Egypt and Qatar are making an urgent push to conclude long-running talks on a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas amid intense diplomatic efforts to defuse regional hostilities.
US President Joe Biden, his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani called on the two sides “to resume urgent discussions in Doha or Cairo to close remaining gaps” and “commence implementation of the deal without further delay”.
In a statement late on Thursday, they set a date for the negotiations between Israel and Hamas to resume next Thursday and said they would present a bridging proposal if necessary.
Washington, Cairo and Doha, which have mediated the talks, are attempting to speed up negotiations to end the war in Gaza as the Middle East braces for the response from Iran and Lebanese group Hizbollah to the assassinations last week of two senior militant leaders.
The US and its allies fear the region is in danger of sliding towards a full-blown war after Hizbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr was killed by an Israeli strike in Beirut, and Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran.
Doha-based Haniyeh was Hamas’s chief negotiator at the talks and mediators consider his killing as a setback to the negotiations. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for his death.
Israel carried out the strike on Shukr in response to a suspected attack by the Lebanese militant group in the occupied Golan Heights last month that killed 12 young people.
The US and its allies view a deal to halt the conflict in Gaza and secure the release of hostages seized in Hamas’s October 7 attack as the only way to de-escalate regional hostilities.
Washington has warned Tehran that a significant attack on Israel risks scuttling the Gaza ceasefire discussions and tipping the region into full-blown war.
“The consequences of such a direct attack could be quite significant, including for Iran, and Iran’s economy and everything else,” said a senior US administration official. “We’re doing all we can to deter such an attack, to defeat an attack if it comes and also to demonstrate to Iran that there’s a better path forward here than a military attack.”
The Biden administration has grown increasingly frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Washington believes has taken a series of actions that set back efforts to conclude a deal.
Biden had endorsed a multiphase ceasefire agreement in late May and pushed Netanyahu to move ahead on the proposal when the Israeli leader visited Washington in July.
The talks were deadlocked for months as Hamas insisted that any agreement must provide an upfront guarantee that the war would end permanently, something Netanyahu has refused to countenance. However, before the assassination of Haniyeh, Hamas had conceded that negotiations on how the war ends would be delayed until the first phase of the three-stage process was complete.
But Netanyahu introduced tough new conditions, despite his security chiefs believing a deal is in Israel’s interests.
Hamas has since announced that Yahya Sinwar, its top official in Gaza and the mastermind of the October 7 attacks, has succeeded Haniyeh as the group’s political leader. The risk is that the move will harden the position of both the Palestinian militant group and Netanyahu.
While the US, Qatar and Egypt do not expect Hamas and Israel to be ready to sign a deal when they meet in Cairo or Doha on Thursday, they expect to bring everyone together in one location to bridge the gaps on “four or five issues” where the parties remain far apart.
A diplomat briefed on the talks said on Friday that Haniyeh’s assassination and Sinwar’s appointment could affect some of Hamas’s conditions. But he added that Hamas had given “positive indications” about next week’s meeting.
Any hopes of a breakthrough are likely to depend on whether Netanyahu softens his position.
“The problem was Netanyahu’s insistence on Israel’s new conditions,” the diplomat said. “But the Americans are very positive about the talks. if they are able to convince Netanyahu to take his wins and back down on some of those points, then maybe there can be a breakthrough.”
Israel said late on Thursday it would send mediators to next week’s talks.
“There needs to be a way forward. We have lives on the line, particularly the hostages,” said the senior US official. “It’s time to close this out.”
Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a phone call this week that if the US and its allies want to prevent “war and insecurity in the region” they must force Israel to accept a ceasefire in Gaza.
