CIA director to join other intelligence chiefs at Israel-Hamas talks in Cairo

From left: the CIA director, William Burns, the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, and the PM of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, are thought to be among those gathering in Cairo today for talks over a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in Gaza. Composite: AFP/Getty Images

The CIA director, William Burns, is expected to join teams from Hamas and Israel in Cairo today for negotiations over a ceasefire and prisoner exchange as international pressure increases to advance the talks.

Israel’s delegation includes its heads of intelligence, David Barnea of the Mossad and Ronen Bar, the director of Shin Bet. Also attending are the Egyptian intelligence director, Abbas Kamel, and the Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani. A senior Egyptian 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 toward a permanent ceasefire amid suggestions of “significant” progress.

Egypt’s intelligence agency has acted as a significant interlocutor in past conflicts between Hamas and Israel, while Burns’ presence is seen as underlining US pressure for an end to hostilities.

A US official, quoted in the New York Times, said Burns was travelling to Cairo after the US president, Joe Biden, said on Monday that he was pressing for a deal including a ceasefire of at least six weeks in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.

The hostages were seized in the 7 October raid on southern Israel by militants, which killed 1,200 people and triggered Israel’s military offensive. Securing their return is a priority for the government of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along withe eradicating Hamas, which controls Gaza.

“The key element of the deals are on the table,” Biden told journalists at a briefing alongside the visiting Jordanian king, Abdullah II.

“There are gaps that remain, but I’ve encouraged Israeli leaders to keep working to achieve the deal,” he said, adding that Israel should not launch a ground offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah without a “credible plan” to safeguard the 1.4 million displaced civilians sheltering there.

A western diplomat in the Egyptian capital also said a six-week deal was on the table but cautioned that more work was needed to reach an agreement.

Netanyahu has publicly insisted on a hardline position, saying Israel would continue its offensive until total victory. However, behind the scenes, officials have suggested that incremental progress was being made in negotiations for a second, longer ceasefire, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the talks.

Talks are moving forward even after Israel intensified its offensive in Rafah. An Israeli hostage rescue mission freed two captives held in the town along the Egyptian border, in a raid that killed at least 74 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and left a trail of destruction.

A deal would give people in Gaza a desperately needed respite from the war, now in its fifth month, and offer freedom for at least some of the 100-plus hostages. Efforts to bring about a deal have so been hobbled by the disparate positions of Hamas and Israel.

Israel has proposed a two-month ceasefire, in which hostages would be freed in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and top Hamas leaders in Gaza would be allowed to move to other countries.

Hamas rejected those terms and has laid out a three-phase plan of 45 days each in which the hostages would be released in stages, Israel would free hundreds of imprisoned Palestinians, including senior militants, and the war would be wound down, with Israel withdrawing its troops.

A deal in late November brought about a brief truce allowing the release of about 100 hostages in Gaza in exchange for about 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Israel says approximately 30 hostages in Gaza are believed to have died or been killed while in captivity, with their bodies still in the strip. by Israeli forces mistakenly killed three hostages in December, and a female Israeli soldier was freed in a rescue mission in the early weeks of the war.

While concerns have grown over Rafah because it is sheltering such a large number of Palestinians, fighting was continuing throughout the Gaza Strip, with the Israeli military saying troops were battling militants in Gaza’s second largest city, Khan Younis, and in central Gaza. It said on Tuesday that three more soldiers had been killed in combat, increasing the death toll among Israeli troops to 232.