US and allies Egypt and Qatar agree on draft to end Gaza war, say sources

Latest talks held against backdrop of Egyptian-Israeli tensions amid growing fears over planned offensive on Rafah

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Mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar agreed on Tuesday to new proposals to end the war in Gaza, sources briefed on the talks told media.

The proposals include a six-week pause in the fighting during which a prisoner and hostage swap between Israel and Hamas would be undertaken.

The sources said the pause would be offered “on the understanding” that a comprehensive ceasefire would follow. The proposals also include a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the formation of an interim Palestinian government made up of technocrats to run the territory while reconstruction of the enclave is carried out, the sources said.

Hamas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have been informed of the latest proposals and the mediators are awaiting their formal response, said the sources.

The proposals were reached during talks in Cairo on Tuesday that brought together CIA director William Burns, his Egyptian and Israeli counterparts and Qatar’s Prime Minister and intelligence chief.

The quartet of nations met late last month in Paris when they hammered out a plan to end the fighting in Gaza. Hamas, however, made counterproposals that Israel rejected outright, sending the talks back to the drawing board.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met separately on Tuesday with Mr Burns and the Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman. The president’s office said the meetings reviewed the situation in Gaza, efforts to halt the fighting and ensuring the supply of humanitarian aid to the territory.

The latest round of talks in Cairo comes amid growing fears of heavy civilian casualties if Israel goes ahead with plans to take its ground operations into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge from the fighting.

Earlier on Tuesday, an AP report quoted an unnamed Egyptian official saying mediators had achieved “relatively significant” progress in indirect contacts between Israel and Hamas before the Cairo meeting.

The official said the meeting would focus on “crafting a final draft” of a six-week ceasefire deal, with guarantees that the parties would continue negotiations towards a permanent ceasefire.

Speaking at the White House on Monday, US President Joe Biden also spoke about a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas which would bring an immediate and sustained period of calm into Gaza for at least six weeks.

Saying he was working on the issue “day and night”, Mr Biden said a six-week break in hostilities would provide a foundation “to build something more enduring”.

Notably, the renewed negotiations coincide with growing tension between Egypt and Israel which have led to Cairo threatening to void their 1979 peace treaty if a major ground assault on Rafah is launched.

The treaty limits the number of troops on both sides of their border in the Sinai Peninsula, although the two nations have in the past agreed to modify those arrangements in response to specific security threats. This has allowed Israel to focus its military on other threats.

In anticipation of a Rafah offensive, Egypt has reinforced its military presence on the border with Gaza and Israel, placing forces on high alert, and stepped up ground patrols and reconnaissance flights over the area, informed sources in Cairo said.

It has matched these moves with hard-line rhetoric, saying a ground operation in Rafah would have “dire” consequences.

Like the US and other nations, Egypt fears an Israeli incursion into Rafah will result in massive civilian casualties and leave hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with no place to go except across the border in the Sinai Peninsula.