Top Biden administration negotiators are headed back to the Middle East on Thursday for a last diplomatic drive before the American election, though hopes are not high for quick agreements to pause the fighting.
With Israel battling Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director and top American negotiator, is expected to meet with officials in Cairo on Thursday, according to a U.S. official who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive negotiations. At the same time, President Biden’s Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, and his de facto envoy on the conflict with Hezbollah, Amos Hochstein, will hold talks in Israel, the U.S. official said.
The head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, is also traveling to the region and is scheduled to visit Israel for discussions with counterparts there as well as with U.S. military personnel in the country, the U.S. official added.
The goal of all of these visits is to support the Biden administration’s policy of “de-escalation backed by deterrence,” the U.S. official said. But progress in cease-fire talks seems unlikely in coming days, with the election looming on Tuesday in the United States.
Officials briefed on Israel’s internal thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, have said that the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is waiting to see who will succeed President Biden before committing to a diplomatic trajectory.
In his meetings with officials in Egypt, Mr. Burns is expected to discuss proposals to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a cease-fire, according to a U.S. official and another person briefed on the talks. About 100 hostages captured in the Hamas attack in Israel last October remain in Gaza, and Israeli officials believe about two-thirds are still alive.
Earlier in the week, during talks among envoys from Israel, the United States and the two countries that mediate for Hamas, Egypt and Qatar, possible proposals emerged for an initial, temporary cease-fire in Gaza that would lead to the return of a small group of hostages.
Mr. Burns’s discussions in Cairo are expected to focus on refinements to those scaled-down proposals that American officials hope will prod both Israel and Hamas to at least soften their positions and allow bargaining to resume in earnest after months of false starts.
Multiple versions of a potential Gaza proposal are still under discussion. One would release female hostages along with male captives over 50 in return for a set number of Palestinian prisoners, according to a person briefed on the discussions, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. In that version, the fighting in Gaza would pause for some time, but likely less than the six weeks envisioned in a previous deal negotiators had been pushing.
Officials in Washington are pessimistic that Hamas will take any of the new deals on offer, however. A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, has already rejected an idea Egypt proposed over the weekend for a 48-hour cease-fire in Gaza, during which Hamas would release four Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Mr. Hamdan said on Sunday that Hamas would agree only to a permanent cessation of hostilities.
Some U.S. officials believe that Hamas leaders, like some officials in Israel, see waiting as advantageous. Israel’s longstanding conflict with Hezbollah, which reignited when the Lebanon-based armed group began firing on Israel last October in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, has ballooned from a regular but relatively restrained exchange of fire into an Israeli military ground operation and airstrikes inside Lebanon.
In Israel, Mr. McGurk and Mr. Hochstein are expected to discuss the war in Gaza and the hostages, Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the related conflict with Iran. On Wednesday, a draft cease-fire proposal to address the fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon was published by Israeli news media, prompting a National Security Council spokesman, Sean Savett, to warn that such reports should be viewed with skepticism.
“There are many reports and drafts circulating,” he said in a statement. “They do not reflect the current state of negotiations.”
For all of the diplomatic activity, there is little indication that conflicts in the Middle East can be paused or resolved anytime soon. The officials are also bracing for a potential retaliation from Iran after an Israeli attack on Saturday on key Iranian military and strategic sites. The two countries have long been waging a shadow war that has become more overt in recent months, trading direct attacks and putting the rest of the world on edge.
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