By Andrew Mills and Nidal al-Mughrabi
DOHA/CAIRO (Reuters) -Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha were paused on Friday with negotiators to meet again next week seeking an agreement to end fighting between Israel and Hamas and free remaining hostages, as U.S. President Joe Biden said “we’re not there yet”.
In a joint statement, the United States, Qatar and Egypt said Washington had presented a new proposal that built on points of agreement over the past week, closing gaps between the sides in a way that could allow rapid implementation of a deal.
Mediators would continue to work on the proposal in coming days, they said.
“The path is now set for that outcome, saving lives, bringing relief to the people of Gaza, and de-escalating regional tensions,” they said in the statement.
An Israeli official said its delegation in Doha was heading home later on Friday and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to meet U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday.
The latest round in months of on-off talks to end the war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, began between Israel and mediators on Thursday. The Palestinian militant group Hamas was not directly involved in the talks but was kept briefed on progress.
A senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, told Reuters that Israel “did not abide by what was agreed upon” in earlier talks, citing what mediators had told them about the result of the talks.
In Washington, Biden said a deal was “much, much closer” than had been the case before the talks began.
“I don’t want to jinx anything … we may have something. But we’re not there yet,” he said.
Sticking points have included Israel’s insistence that peace will only be possible if Hamas is destroyed, and Hamas saying it will only accept a permanent, rather than temporary, ceasefire.
Other difficulties have included the sequencing of a deal, the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released alongside Israeli hostages, control over the border between Gaza and Egypt, and free movement for Palestinians inside Gaza.
Israeli forces pounded targets across tiny, crowded Gaza on Friday and issued new orders for people to leave areas it had previously designated as civilian safe zones, saying Hamas had used them to fire mortars and rockets at Israel.
As hundreds of families fled with salvaged belongings, the United Nations called for a week-long pause in fighting for a polio-vaccination campaign with disease spreading among the displaced.
A senior Western official, speaking anonymously, said there was at least one confirmed case of polio in the enclave, calling Gaza “a contagion time bomb.”
The conflict began on Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters rampaged into Israel, killing around 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military campaign has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel says it has eliminated 17,000 Hamas fighters.
REGIONAL FEARS
In a statement late on Thursday, Hamas politburo member Hossam Badran said Israel’s continuing operations were an obstacle to progress on a ceasefire.
The Israeli delegation included spy chief David Barnea, head of the domestic security service Ronen Bar and the military’s hostages chief Nitzan Alon, defence officials said.
The White House sent CIA Director Bill Burns and U.S. Middle East envoy Brett McGurk. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel were also taking part.
The negotiations took place in the shadow of a feared regional escalation, with Iran threatening to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.
With U.S. warships, submarines and warplanes dispatched to the region to defend Israel and deter potential attackers, Washington hopes a ceasefire agreement in Gaza can defuse the risk of a wider war.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri accused the United States of trying to buy time for Israel while having “no real intention of stopping the war”, and that letting the conflict continue “is a recipe for an unprecedented explosion in the region”.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Nafisa Eltahir in Cairo, Maayan Lubell and Maytaal Angel in Jerusalem, Andrew Mills in Doha and Trevor Hunnicutt, David Ljunggren and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Rod Nickel)