Talks in Cairo on Gaza truce wrap up without agreement

Al-Rishq, however, said the group is still committed to “accepting the proposal presented by the mediators.”

According to a high-level Egyptian source speaking to Al-Qahera News TV channel, both Hamas and Israeli delegations left Cairo on Thursday following two days of discussions on the Gaza truce, unfortunately without coming to an agreement.

According to the source, the Egyptian security delegation has been working diligently to find common ground on the challenging issues at hand.

A Hamas official, Ezzat al-Rishq, has confirmed that the delegation sent for talks in Cairo has now left and returned to the Qatari capital, Doha.

Meanwhile, a US source familiar with the talks told Al Jazeera TV channel that CIA Director William Burns departed Cairo for the US following the end of the negotiations.

This latest round of Cairo talks resumed on Tuesday, bringing together all five delegations amidst ongoing tensions sparked by the recent Israeli military ground invasion of the Palestinian city of Rafah. 

Egypt, along with international mediators, continues its efforts to bridge the gap between the two sides in light of the latest developments in the Gaza Strip, the source said. 

On Tuesday, Israel deployed tanks into Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and took control of the Palestinian side of the border crossing with Egypt.

Egypt, which shares a border with Rafah and maintains a peace treaty with Israel, and Qatar, which hosts Hamas political leaders, have been at the forefront of ceasefire negotiations.

Israel, whose brutal war on Gaza has continued for more than seven months, is facing mounting international pressure to agree to a Gaza ceasefire

Since the war began on 7 October, Israeli occupation forces killed 34,904 people, injured 78,514, caused extensive damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, and displaced most of the strip’s residents.