CAIRO: Gaza ceasefire negotiations will resume in Doha on Wednesday then return to Cairo on Thursday after talks on Tuesday between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, Egypt's state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV said.
An Egyptian security delegation will head to Qatar's capital on Wednesday "on a mission to bring viewpoints closer between Palestinian Hamas and Israel in order to reach a truce agreement as soon as possible", Al-Qahera News quoted a senior source as saying.
"There is an agreement over many points," the senior source said, adding the negotiations will be back in Cairo on Thursday.
Egypt and Qatar have been spearheading mediation in the nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in hopes of ending the fighting and securing the release of Israeli captives in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Senior U.S. officials were in the region to push for a ceasefire after Hamas made concessions last week, but the Palestinian group said a new Israeli assault on Gaza on Monday threatened truce talks at a crucial moment, and it urged mediators to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"President Sisi affirmed the Egyptian position rejecting the continuation of military operations in the Gaza Strip," the presidency said in a statement after his meeting with Burns in Cairo. Sisi also stressed the need to take "serious and effective steps" to prevent the expansion of the Gaza conflict in the wider region, the presidency added.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed at least 18 Palestinians on the second day of a stepped-up military offensive in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
Israeli tanks deepened their incursion into Gaza City districts, where residents reported the previous day some of the most fierce fighting since the start of the war.
Following Israeli evacuation orders, thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in Gaza City in the north of the territory and head westward towards the Mediterranean coast and to the south. — Reuters
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