Key mediator Egypt proposes a 2-day Gaza cease-fire, release of 4 hostages

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel — Egypt’s president announced Sunday his country has proposed a two-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas during which four hostages held in Gaza would be freed. There was no immediate response from Israel or Hamas as the latest talks were expected in Qatar, another key mediator.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said the proposal includes the release of some Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza. It aims to “move the situation forward,” he said, adding that negotiations would continue to make the cease-fire permanent.

Talks in pursuit of a longer, phased cease-fire have repeatedly stalled. Hamas wants Israeli forces out of Gaza as a precondition, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said they will remain until destroying Hamas. There hasn’t been a cease-fire since November’s weeklong pause.

Israel’s Mossad chief was traveling to Doha on Sunday for talks with Qatar’s prime minister and the CIA chief in the latest attempt to end the fighting and ease regional tensions that have built since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on southern Israel.

Those tensions now see Israel at war with both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and openly attacking Iran, their backer, for the first time this weekend. Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday said Israel’s strikes — in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack this month — “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation.

Netanyahu in his first public comments on the strikes on Iran said “we severely harmed Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed toward us.”

Satellite images showed damage to two secretive Iranian military bases, one linked to work on nuclear weapons that Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was discontinued in 2003. The other is linked to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran said a civilian had been killed. It earlier said four people with the military air defense were killed.

During a government memorial for the Hebrew anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “not every goal can be achieved through only military operations,” adding that “painful compromises will be required” to return the hostages.

Meanwhile, a truck rammed into a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon near Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel and had been “neutralized.” The ramming occurred outside a military base and near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Inside Gaza, the latest Israeli strikes in the north killed at least 33 people, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted terrorist.