Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said leading delegation to Cairo

Hamas’s deputy chief in Gaza Khalil al-Hayya will lead the Palestinian delegation heading to Cairo today to meet with Egyptian officials on the latest Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, according to Arab media reports, though the terror group has said it will not take part in indirect negotiations.

Based in Doha, Hayya led Hamas’s negotiating team for hostage-ceasefire talks under the supervision of politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh until his assassination in Tehran last month. He has also led reconciliation talks with Hamas’s Palestinian rival Fatah in past years.

“The delegation will meet with senior Egyptian intelligence officials to be briefed on developments in the ongoing round of Gaza ceasefire talks… but this does not mean it will take part in the negotiations,” a Hamas official tells AFP on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to talk publicly on the issue.

“Hamas has said from the beginning that it will not participate in this round of negotiations, which began last week in Doha.”

The official also insists that Israel withdraw its forces from across Gaza, including “from the border area with Egypt” — a zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

Negotiators have been working to find a compromise on the deployment of IDF troops along the Gaza-Egypt border in the event of a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that an Israeli presence on the Philadelphi Corridor — the 14-kilometer (9-mile) buffer strip that separates Egypt from Israel and the Gaza Strip — is vital to preventing the Palestinian terror group from re-arming, while Hamas and Egypt want to see Israeli forces withdraw entirely.