Gaza ceasefire talks continue, risk of broader war eases

Negotiations in Cairo to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage deal are still pressing ahead, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday, adding that the discussions will continue on the working-group level for the next few days to iron out specific issues.

Speaking to reporters in a virtual briefing, Kirby pushed back on suggestions that the talks have broken down, and said, on the contrary, that they were "constructive."

"The talks actually progressed to a point where they felt like the next logical step was to have working groups at lower levels to sit down to hammer out these finer details," Kirby said.

One of the issues to be tackled by the working groups will be the exchange of hostages Hamas is holding and Palestinian prisoners that Israel is holding, Kirby said, adding that the details to be settled included how many hostages may be exchanged, their identities and the pace of their potential release.

Hamas official Taher Al-Nono reiterated to Qatar's Al Jazeera Mubasher on Monday that remarks made by the U.S. regarding the status of the ceasefire talks are "inconsistent with the truth and their objective is to support the positions of the occupation."

The latest round of negotiations came under the threat of a regional escalation. But the exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah were muted by comparison with the Sunday attacks.

Hezbollah claimed on Monday evening that "in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and their resistance, our fighters targeted the spy equipment at the Ramyah site with a suicide drone, hitting it directly."

Military sources in Lebanon, speaking anonymously, told Xinhua that Israeli drones and warplanes carried out 12 air strikes on border towns and villages in southern Lebanon on Monday. The strikes targeted a car and two motorcycles, causing only material damage.

The near-term risk of a broader war in the Middle East has eased somewhat after Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire without further escalation but Iran still poses a significant danger as it weighs a strike on Israel, U.S. Air Force General Charles Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Reuters on Monday.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, more than 40,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

UN humanitarian agencies say most of its 2.3 million people have been displaced multiple times and face acute shortages of food and medicine.

Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said there were 16 evacuation orders so far in August, three of them since Friday.

"What happened over the weekend just brought the (UN) agencies to the point where they couldn't continue to operate because of conditions not under their control," said Dujarric.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that "these relocations took place at short notice and in dangerous conditions."

The office said water production in Deir al Balah was reduced by 85 percent due to the loss of access to water sources in areas designated for evacuation.

(With input from Xinhua, Reuters)