US negotiators racing to present new Gaza ceasefire proposal, sources say

By Steve Holland, Jonathan Landay, Andrew Mills and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan

WASHINGTON/DOHA/CAIRO (Reuters) - The White House is scrambling to put forward a new proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas in the coming days, two U.S. officials, two Egyptian security sources and an official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The new proposal aims to work out the major sticking points behind a months-long impasse in talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt seeking a truce in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the U.S. officials said.

Much of the deal has been agreed upon, a senior Biden administration official separately told reporters on Wednesday, but negotiators were still trying to hammer out solutions to two main obstacles.

Those are Israel's demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor, a buffer zone in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt, and the specific individuals who would be included in an exchange of Hamas hostages and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, said the administration official, who declined to be identified.

The first U.S. official said a new draft accord could be produced next week or even sooner. "The feeling is the time is up. Don't be surprised if you see (the revised draft) this weekend," that official said.

The administration official said Hamas' killing of six hostages, whose bodies were returned to Israel over the weekend, complicated the effort. "We all feel the urgency," the administration official said. CIA Director William Burns, the lead U.S. negotiator, heads the small group of senior U.S. officials working on the draft which includes White House coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the first U.S. official said.

"There is a very strong perception on the part of the negotiators that the ceasefire is slipping away," the first U.S. official said, underscoring the urgency underpinning the effort.

Since Blinken's latest tour of the region last month failed to produce a breakthrough, mediators have kept up working-level discussions, and those talks are continuing, the first U.S. official said.

The Egyptian sources said the U.S. was shifting from a more consultative approach to trying to impose a ceasefire plan on the parties.

Both U.S. officials said the revised plan would not be a final take-it-or-leave it offer and that Washington would continue working towards a ceasefire if it fell through. 

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On Tuesday, five Arab countries including regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia as well as the Palestinian Authority joined Egypt in rejecting Israel's demand to keep its troops deployed in the Philadelphi corridor. On Wednesday, Turkey issued a similar statement.

Parts of the three-phase agreement already accepted by both sides require Israel to withdraw from all densely populated areas of Gaza in the first phase of the deal. The senior administration official said the current dispute is whether the corridor qualifies as a densely populated area.

"So we're really talking here about Phase One, about what that configuration will look like," the official added.

The U.S. group is considering areas of the Philadelphi corridor where Israeli troops would have to withdraw and areas where they could stay, the first U.S. official said.

At talks in Qatar on Monday, an Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea told mediators that Israel was willing to withdraw its troops from the corridor after the first 42-day phase of a ceasefire, the official with knowledge of the talks said.

But hours later Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a news conference in Jerusalem and insisted that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, comments the official said were made after the delegation had returned home.

Netanyahu on Wednesday repeated his outright rejection of a withdrawal from the corridor in the first phase of a deal. Israel would only agree to a permanent ceasefire after that if there were guarantees the corridor could never be used as route for smuggling weapons and supplies into Gaza for Hamas.

"This has placed the mediating parties in a difficult position. If Israel remains in the Philadelphi corridor, neither Egypt nor Hamas would agree to any agreement," the official with knowledge of the matter said.

Netanyahu's office declined to comment.

Senior Hamas official Izzat Al Risheq told Reuters on Wednesday that the group would deal with a new proposal that "responds to the demands of the resistance and the demands of our people", without providing specifics. Hamas said in a statement there was no need for new proposals, and accused Netanyahu of seeking to thwart a deal.

Israel seized control of the Philadelphi corridor in May, saying it was used by Hamas to smuggle weapons and banned material into its tunnels to Gaza.

The Israeli advance resulted in the closure of the Rafah crossing, sharply reducing humanitarian aid entering Gaza, halting most medical evacuations and potentially depriving Egypt of its role brokering access to the only border crossing into Gaza not directly controlled by Israel.

Egypt says that tunnels used for smuggling into Gaza have been closed or destroyed, a Palestinian presence at Rafah should be restored and the Philadelphi corridor buffer zone is guaranteed by the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

The 11-month-old conflict erupted on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians and largely leveled the coastal enclave, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and creating a humanitarian crisis, Gaza's health authorities have said.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills and Imad Creidi in Doha; Trevor Hunnicutt, Steve Holland and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo; Emily Rose and James Mackenzie in Jerusalem; Writing by Andrew Mills and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Cynthia Osterman)