ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH TRADE FIRE
Talks over Gaza cease-fire, hostages will continue after weekend meetings didn’t resolve gaps
JERUSALEM — A round of high-level talks in Cairo meant to bring about a ceasefire and hostage deal to at least temporarily end the 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza ended Sunday without a final agreement, a U.S. official said. But talks will continue at lower levels in the coming days in an effort to bridge remaining gaps.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, said lower level “working teams” will remain in Cairo to meet with mediators the United States, Qatar, and Egypt in hopes to addressing remaining disagreements. The official called the recent conversations, which began Thursday in Cairo and continued through Sunday, as “constructive” and said all parties were working to “reach a final and implementable agreement.”
The talks included CIA director William Burns and David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. A Hamas delegation was briefed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators but did not directly take part in negotiations.
The development came after Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah traded heavy fire early Sunday but backed off from sparking a widely feared all-out war, as both sides signaled their most intense exchange in months was over.
Hezbollah claimed to hit an Israeli military intelligence site near Tel Aviv as part of a barrage of hundreds of rockets and drones, and Israel claimed its dozens of strikes had been preemptive to avert a larger attack. Neither offered evidence.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the attack, a response to Israel’s killing of a top militant commander in Beirut last month, had been delayed to give the Gaza cease-fire talks a chance, and so fellow Iran-backed groups could discuss with Iran whether to attack Israel all at once. Israeli and U.S. military deployment also played a role.
“We will now reserve the right to respond at a later time” if the results of Sunday’s attack aren’t sufficient, Nasrallah said, adding that allied Houthi rebels in Yemen — and Iran itself — had yet to respond. But he told the Lebanese people: “At this current stage, the country can take a breath and relax.”
Israel and Hezbollah said they aimed only at military targets. Israel said no military target was hit by Hezbollah but that one soldier with its navy was killed and two others were wounded either by an interceptor for incoming fire, or by shrapnel from one. Two Hezbollah fighters and a militant from an allied group were killed, the groups said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military eliminated thousands of rockets that were aimed at northern Israel and shot down drones heading for the center of the country.
“I repeat — this is not the end of the story,” he added.
Air raid sirens were reported throughout northern Israel, and Israel’s international airport closed and diverted flights for about an hour.
Israel’s military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said about 100 Israeli planes struck 270 targets, 90% of them rocket launchers aimed at northern Israel. He said they were investigating the percentage of incoming rockets and drones intercepted but said the “vast majority” were thwarted.
Hezbollah said its attack involved more than 320 Katyusha rockets aimed at multiple sites in Israel and a “large number” of drones.
Some Israelis were shaken. In the northern city of Acre, retired teacher Saadia Even Tsur, 76, said he was at the synagogue and arrived home five minutes after his bedroom was damaged. “I went up and saw the size of the miracle that happened to me,” he said. A window was broken and debris was on the bed.
Lebanon’s caretaker Economy Minister Amin Salam, after an emergency government meeting, said officials were “feeling a bit more optimistic” about a de-escalation after both sides confirmed that the operations had ended.
President Joe Biden was “closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon,” according to Sean Savett, a spokesman for the National Security Council. The Pentagon said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and ordered both U.S. carrier strike groups in the region to stay. The U.S. military has been building up its forces across the region in recent weeks.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown, arrived in Israel late Sunday for meetings on what the Israeli military called “joint preparations in the region as part of the response to threats in the Middle East.”