JERUSALEM — A annular of high-level talks in Cairo meant to accompany about a accord and earnest accord to at atomic briefly end the 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza concluded Sunday afterwards a final agreement, a U.S. official said. But talks will abide at lower levels in the advancing canicule in an accomplishment to arch actual gaps.
The official, who batten on the action of anonymity to altercate the talks, said lower akin “working teams” will abide in Cairo to accommodate with mediators the United States, Qatar, and Egypt in hopes to acclamation actual disagreements. The official alleged the Contempo conversations, which began Thursday in Cairo and connected through Sunday, as “constructive” and said all parties were alive to “reach a final and implementable agreement.”
The talks included CIA administrator William Burns and David Barnea, the arch of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. A Hamas appointment was abreast by Egyptian and Qatari mediators but did not anon booty allotment in negotiations.
The development came afterwards Israel, and the Lebanese active accumulation Hezbollah traded abundant blaze aboriginal Sunday but backed off from sparking a broadly feared absolute war, as both abandon signaled their best acute barter in months was over.
Hezbollah claimed to hit an Israeli aggressive intelligence armpit abreast Tel Aviv as allotment of a battery of hundreds of rockets and drones, and Israel claimed its dozens of strikes had been preemptive to abstain a beyond attack. Neither offered evidence.
Hezbollah baton Hassan Nasrallah said the attack, an acknowledgment to Israel’s killing of a top active administrator in Beirut aftermost month, had been delayed according to the Gaza accord talks a chance, and so adolescent Iran-backed groups could altercate with Iran whether to advance Israel all at once. Israeli and U.S. aggressive deployment additionally played a role.
“We will now assets the appropriate to acknowledge at a afterwards time” if the after-effects of Sunday’s advance aren’t sufficient, Nasrallah said, abacus that affiliated Houthi rebels in Yemen -- and Iran itself -- had yet to respond. But he told the Lebanese people: “At this accepted stage, the country can booty a animation and relax.”
Israel and Hezbollah said they aimed alone at aggressive targets. Israel said no aggressive ambition was hit by Hezbollah but that one soldier with its fleet was dead and two others were blood-soaked either by an interceptor for admission fire, or by armament from one. Two Hezbollah fighters and a active from an affiliated accumulation were killed, the groups said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the aggressive alone bags of rockets that were aimed at arctic Israel and attempt bottomward drones branch for the centermost of the country.
“I echo — this is not the end of the story,” he added.
Flights absent as air arrest sirens wail
Air arrest sirens had appeared throughout arctic Israel, and Israel’s all-embracing airport bankrupt and absent flights for about an hour.
Israel’s aggressive spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said about 100 Israeli planes addled 270 targets, 90% of them rocket launchers aimed at arctic Israel. He said they were investigating the allotment of admission rockets and drones intercepted but said the “vast majority” were thwarted.
Hezbollah said its advance complex added than 320 Katyusha rockets aimed at assorted sites in Israel and a “large number” of drones.
Some Israelis were shaken. In the arctic burghal of Acre, retired abecedary Saadia Even Tzur, 76, said he was at the abbey and accustomed home bristles account afterwards his bedchamber was damaged. “I went up and saw the admeasurement of the phenomenon that happened to me,” he said. A window was burst, and bits was on the bed.
Lebanon’s babysitter Economy Minister Amin Salam, afterwards an emergency government meeting, said admiral were “feeling a bit added optimistic” about a de-escalation afterwards abandon accepted that the operations had ended.
President Joe Biden was “closely ecology contest in Israel and Lebanon,” according to Sean Savitt, a agent for the National Security Council. The Pentagon said Aegis Secretary Lloyd Austin batten with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and ordered both U.S. carrier bang groups in the arena to stay. The U.S. aggressive has been architecture up its armament beyond the arena in Contempo weeks.
The administrator of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown, accustomed in Israel backward Sunday for affairs on what the Israeli aggressive alleged “joint affairs in the arena as allotment of the acknowledgment to threats in the Middle East.”
All-out war allegedly averted for now
Danny Cirikovics, an able at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said Hezbollah ability be aggravating to “balance the blueprint afterwards ascent into war.” Each ancillary hopes their anecdotal will be acceptable for them to acknowledge achievement and abstain an added confrontation, he said.
Hezbollah began advancing Israel about anon afterwards the alpha of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 advance into southern Israel. Israel and Hezbollah accept exchanged blaze about daily, displacing tens of bags of bodies on both abandon of the border.
Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a stalemate in 2006, is believed to be far added able now. The United States and Israel appraisal it has some 150,000 rockets and is able of hitting anywhere central Israel. The accumulation has additionally developed drones able of artifice Israel’s defenses, as able-bodied as precision-guided munitions.
Israel has vowed a crushing acknowledgment to any above Hezbollah attack. It has an all-encompassing multi-tiered missile aegis system, and it is backed by a U.S.-led affiliation that helped it shoot bottomward hundreds of missiles and drones accursed from Iran beforehand this year.
Hezbollah is a abutting accessory of Iran, which has additionally threatened to retaliate adjoin Israel for the killing of chief Hamas baton Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran aftermost month. Israel has not said whether it was involved.
Iranian accompaniment media played up the Hezbollah attack, calling it a success, but there was no actual animadversion from Iranian officials.
The U.S. and added mediators see a accord in Gaza as key to arresting an added Mideast war. Hezbollah has said it will arrest its strikes on Israel if there is a cease-fire.
The talks in Cairo on Sunday aimed at bridging gaps in an angle for an accord and the absolution of array of hostages captivated by Hamas. The talks included CIA administrator William Burns and David Barnea, the arch of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
The Hamas appointment was abreast by Egyptian and Qatari mediators but did not anon booty allotment in negotiations.
In the active West Bank, Israel’s aggressive said it dead two bodies who allegedly approved to run over soldiers in Ariel, hardly affliction one.
