Ceasefire talks are now underway at the working group level in Cairo over the next few days to iron out the details, according to National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby.
This weekend’s strikes by Israel and Hezbollah have “not affected the actual work on the ground by the teams trying to get this cease-fire agreement in place,” Kirby told reporters on Monday.
Displaced Palestinian children draw water to their tent in a makeshift camp on the perimeter of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders for the area on August 26, 2024, amid the ongoing ongoing the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images
Kirby also dismissed any suggestion that talks broke down at the weekend, instead saying they were “constructive” enough to work on “finer details” at lower levels.
“There was no breakdown,” he said. “They made enough progress that they were willing or needed to move to a task force level so you didn’t need all the mediators there and the leadership there.”
Brett McGurk, a top White House Middle East adviser, stayed in Cairo an extra day to start the meetings and is still there, Kirby said, adding that all parties are represented in these discussions.
“One issue that will be for the working groups to flesh out is the exchange of hostages and prisoners that Israel is holding — what that exchange looks like, how many, some of the details of exactly who will be released on each side and at what pace, that kind of of things,” Kirby said.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez