Israeli Team Travels to Cairo With Gaza Talks Set to Resume

Israeli negotiators arrived in Cairo for another round of talks aimed at cementing a cease-fire in the Gaza war even as an agreement remained elusive and US officials warned time was running out. 
Israeli officials said David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, was in the Egyptian capital with his team. The US’s top envoy for the region, Brett McGurk, was also there, according to US National Security Council spokesman Eduardo Maia Silva.
The talks are the latest in a months-long effort to halt the war that followed Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, during which the group killed 1,200 Israelis and took 240 people hostage. Israel’s campaign in response has killed some 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the region.
On the table is a proposal backed by the US, Egypt and Qatar that provides for a phased cessation of hostilities, the release of hostages held by Hamas, a surge of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from key areas of the enclave.
Earlier: Blinken Says ‘Time Is of the Essence’ for Gaza Truce Deal 
The meeting comes after Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to Washington from a whirlwind trip to Israel, Egypt and Qatar intended to bring the parties closer to agreement. After a three-hour meeting Monday in Jerusalem, both Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had backed the “bridging” proposal, leaving the onus on Hamas to accept.
“Time is of the essence,” Blinken told reporters on the airport tarmac in Doha, minutes before beginning the trip home to the US. “Israel has now accepted that proposal — I heard that directly from Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday — and we hope and expect Hamas will do the same.”
Hamas representatives have countered that Netanyahu has continued to add conditions to the cease-fire plan.
President Joe Biden has also pushed to get a cease-fire, especially with the issue becoming a point of contention among Democrats back home. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have protested at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and some groups have criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ nominee to succeed Biden as president, for not featuring a Palestinian voice on the main stage of the convention.
Hamas didn’t participate directly in talks in Doha last week. Instead, Egypt and Qatar served as intermediaries to the group, which is designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union.
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