CAIRO, Egypt: Delegations from Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye, mediators along with the United States of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, met on Tuesday in Cairo to discuss the second phase of the deal, Egyptian state-linked media reported.
Egypt’s Al-Qahera News said the meeting included the Egyptian and Turkish intelligence chiefs alongside the prime minister of Qatar.
The delegates discussed working with the US “to ensure the successful implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement” between Israel and Hamas, the channel reported.
Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and the US act as both mediators and guarantors for the Gaza deal, which came into effect on October 10 after two years of the relentless Israeli bombardment campaign.
Since October 2023, the Israeli military offensive has killed at least 69,600 Palestinians in Gaza, the territory’s health ministry said.
The mediators’ meeting in Cairo came two days after a senior Hamas delegation met with Egyptian spy chief Hassan Rashad to discuss the second phase of the truce, AFP reported.
That phase concerns disarming Hamas, establishing a transitional authority and deploying an international stabilisation force of foreign troops to the Gaza Strip.
According to Al-Qahera News, Tuesday’s meeting addressed “overcoming obstacles and limiting violations to ensure the ceasefire holds”.
According to the Gaza health ministry, Israeli fire has killed more than 300 Palestinians since the truce took hold.
The mediators on Tuesday also “agreed to continue strengthening coordination and cooperation with the Civil-Military Coordination Centre” — the truce monitoring centre set up by the US and its allies in southern Israel.
Red Cross receives body of Gaza hostage
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said the Red Cross received the remains of a hostage held in Gaza on Tuesday, as part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
“According to information provided by the Red Cross, a coffin of a deceased hostage has been transferred into its custody and is on the way to IDF (Israeli) troops in the Gaza Strip,” the army said in a statement.
Before the latest handover, Hamas still held the bodies of three hostages in Gaza.
The United Nations warned on Tuesday that Israel’s war in Gaza has ravaged the Palestinian territory’s economy and is threatening its very survival. The UN called for “immediate and substantial” international intervention.
Rebuilding the Gaza Strip will cost more than $70 billion and could take several decades, the UN Trade and Development agency (UNCTAD) said in a new report, warning that war and restrictions had triggered an “unprecedented collapse across the Palestinian economy”.
“The operations have significantly undermined every pillar of survival,” from food to shelter to healthcare, “and plunged Gaza into a human-made abyss”, it said.
