Gaza: Ceasefire Talks Move to Cairo

After two-day negotiations for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza stalled Friday night in Doha, Qatar, the three countries – USA, Egypt, and Qatar – working as mediators between Israel and Hamas (which is not directly involved in the talks) announced that “negotiations will resume next week in Cairo, the Egyptian capital.”

Hamas and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah announced a temporary suspension of hostilities during the talks. For its part, Iran once again criticized the negotiation process for “delaying the Iranian response against Israel.” As Mohammad Soltanifar, head of the Islamic Republic’s Advocacy Office in Cairo, said regarding the assassination of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, “the USA is buying time to delay Iran’s legitimate response to the Israeli regime’s clear aggression that violated the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

However, outgoing US President Joe Biden said he was “optimistic” and that “we’ve never been this close to any kind of agreement.” However, according to the international press, “the negotiations, which have lasted several months, have so far yielded little.” There has been a lot of attention to these events because of the growing tensions between Israel and Iran in recent weeks: for days it was expected that Iran, which supports and funds Hamas, would somehow attack Israel in retaliation for the assassination.