Progress made in Gaza ceasefire talks but still work to do on ‘final details,’ US official says

Negotiators working to strike a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages made progress over the weekend, according to a senior US official familiar with the talks in Cairo, where mediators discussed “final details” of a potential agreement including the names of prisoners that would be exchanged as part of the pact.

Negotiators working to strike a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages made progress over the weekend, according to a senior US official familiar with the talks in Cairo, where mediators discussed “final details” of a potential agreement including the names of prisoners that would be exchanged as part of the pact. While such progress does not guarantee a final agreement anytime soon, negotiators in the Egyptian capital are now discussing the “nuts and bolts” of a deal, the official said. Negotiators have worked for months to bridge demands by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza. The remaining sticking points, while significant, are seen as potentially surmountable, the official said. One issue is the Israeli military’s presence on Gaza’s side of the border with Egypt, an area known as the Philadelphi corridor. Hamas opposes Israel’s desire to continue to station troops there in the early phase of a ceasefire deal. The US official said the current proposal calls for an Israeli military withdrawal from “densely populated areas” in Gaza, and that the current debate is focused on what parts of the Philadelphi corridor qualify as densely-populated versus unpopulated, where the IDF will maintain a presence in the first phase of an agreement.