The leaders of 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, saying “it is time to release the hostages, begin the ceasefire, and implement this agreement”.
In a statement on Thursday US President Joe Biden, Egyptian President 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”.
They set a date for the negotiations between Israel and Hamas to resume on August 15 and said they would present a bridging proposal if necessary.
Washington, Cairo and Doha are seeking to add urgency to talks that have failed to produce a breakthrough and suffered a setback after the assassination in Iran of Ismail Haniyeh, who was Hamas’s chief negotiator. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for his death.
The US and its allies view a deal to halt the war in Gaza and secure the release of hostages seized in Hamas’s October 7 attack as the only way to de-escalate regional hostilities.
Tehran has vowed to retaliate for Haniyeh’s killing, as well as that of top Hizbollah commander Fuad Shukr. Israel carried out the latter strike in response to a suspected attack by the Lebanese militant group in the occupied Golan Heights last month that killed 12 young people. Iranian-backed Hizbollah has also pledged to retaliate for the killing of Shukr.
The US has been warning 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 meanwhile grown increasingly frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they feel has taken a series of actions that have jeopardised a ceasefire deal.
Biden had publicly endorsed a multi-phased ceasefire agreement in late May and pushed Netanyahu to move ahead on the proposal when he visited Washington in July.
The talks have been 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 had insisted on tough new conditions even before the assassinations in Beirut and Tehran took place.
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 next 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.
Israel said late on Thursday it would send mediators to the August 15 talks.
“There needs to be a way forward here. 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.
