Gaza ceasefire talks to continue after Cairo meeting fails to resolve gaps

The Greek-flagged ship Sounion has been on fire since August 23 after an attack by Yemen’s Houthis, EU Red Sea naval mission Aspides said in a post on X on Monday.

Aspides added that so far there are no obvious signs of an oil spill.

The EU mission published photos dated yesterday showing fire and smoke coming out of the vessel’s main deck.

The vessel had been staffed by a crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, when it was attacked in the Red Sea on Thursday. It was taken by a French destroyer to nearby Djibouti, the European Union’s Aspides naval mission.

The Sounion has 150,000 tons of crude oil aboard and represents a “navigational and environmental hazard,” the mission warned. “It is essential that everyone in the area exercises caution and refrains from any actions that could lead to a deterioration of the current situation.”

Late Friday night, the Houthis released footage of an explosion striking the Sounion, their fighters on the water in the distance chanting the group’s slogan: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”

President Joe Biden was “closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon“, Sean Savett, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said.

The Pentagon said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and ordered both US carrier strike groups in the region to stay. The US military has been building up its forces across the region in recent weeks.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General 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”.

All-out war apparently averted for now.

Danny Citrinowicz, an expert at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said Hezbollah might be trying to “balance the equation without escalating into war”. Each side hopes their narrative will be sufficient for them to declare victory and avoid a wider confrontation, he 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 centre of the country.

“I repeat – this is not the end of the story,” he added.

Flights diverted as air raid sirens wailAir 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 Admiral Daniel Hagari, said about 100 Israeli planes struck 270 targets, 90 per cent 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.

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 signalled 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, which was 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 US 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.

A round of high-level talks in Cairo meant to bring about a cease-fire and hostage deal to at least temporarily end the 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza ended on Sunday without a final agreement, a US 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 on 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.

Air raid sirens were reported throughout northern Israel, and the international airport closed and diverted flights for about an hour as Israel and Hezbollah exchanged rocket fire in their most intense exchange in months earlier on Sunday.

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.

With three deaths confirmed in Lebanon and one in Israel, both sides indicated they were happy to avoid further escalation for now, but warned that there could be more strikes to come.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the Iranian-backed group’s barrage, a reprisal for the assassination of senior commander Fuad Shukr last month, had been completed “as planned”.

However, the group would assess the impact of its strikes and “if the result is not enough, then we retain the right to respond another time”, he said.

Israel’s foreign minister said the country did not seek a full-scale war, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned: “This is not the end of the story.”

Earlier, Netanyahu had said: “We are determined to do everything we can to defend our country … whoever harms us – we harm him”.

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.

Talks over a possible Gaza deal ended without agreement in Cairo, with neither Hamas nor Israel agreeing to several comprises presented by mediators, two Egyptian security sources said on Sunday.