Talks in Cairo Aim for a Deal to Halt Gaza War and Free Hostages

Negotiators from multiple countries met in Cairo on Tuesday, struggling to reach an agreement to temporarily stop the war in the Gaza Strip, as international concern mounted over Israel’s plan to press its ground offensive into the city of Rafah, where more than half of the territory’s population has sought refuge.

Talks involving lower-level officials will continue for another three days, according to an Egyptian and an American official briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. They described the negotiations on Tuesday as promising, but Israel and Hamas were still not close to a deal.

A primary obstacle, according to another U.S. official, is a disagreement on how many Palestinians Israel would release from its prisons in exchange for the release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and its allies. A series of exchanges in late November saw three Palestinians released for each hostage returned.

President Biden sent the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, to join the talks, and said that he had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar to “push this forward” over the past month. Officials of Hamas, the armed group fighting Israel, were taking part in the negotiations indirectly, using Qatar and Egypt as intermediaries.

The talks came as the United Nations, the United States and other countries have expressed increasing alarm about the prospect of an Israeli incursion into Rafah on the southern edge of Gaza, where about 1.4 million people are sheltering, many in tents, without adequate food, water and medicine.

Mr. Netanyahu has said that Israel will conduct such an offensive and has ordered the military to draw up plans to evacuate civilians from the city. But many Palestinians and international aid groups say that no place in Gaza is safe, and that moving people away from Rafah, the main entry point for vital aid, will worsen their lot.