US planning to lean on Dermer to end Gaza war during DC meetings — sources

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer will face pressure from the Trump administration during his meetings tomorrow in Washington to end the war in Gaza, a US official and an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter tell The Times of Israel.

Mediators want Israel to send a delegation to Cairo in order to close remaining gaps on several issues, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refrained from doing so, preferring to dispatch Dermer to Washington, in order to try and get on the same page with the US before another round of indirect, proximity talks is held in Egypt, the two sources say.

The sources say that remaining sticking points include Hamas’s demand for a permanent end to the war — as opposed to Israel’s efforts to secure a temporary ceasefire that leaves open the option for it to resume fighting. Hamas is also demanding — with the backing of the Arab mediators — a return to old mechanisms for distributing humanitarian aid or the establishment of a new system to replace the current one managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel says GHF is essential in preventing the diversion of aid by Hamas, but the US- and Israeli-backed system has forced Gazans to walk long distances in order to pick up food, while also crossing IDF lines, coming under deadly fire on a near-daily basis.

Arab mediators were hoping that Israel would agree to send a delegation to Cairo during a top-level ministerial meeting that was held late Sunday night, but that session reportedly ended without any decisions.

The Arab diplomat says that mediators had been pushing Israel to send a delegation to Doha earlier this month in order to discuss a bridging proposal that Qatar and Egypt had put together, which aimed to merge US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s latest offer with Hamas’s response.

The mediators had hoped that Israel’s delegation would arrive in Doha on June 13. Instead, Israel launched its opening salvo in the war against Iran early that morning. Jerusalem subsequently informed mediators that hostage talks would be on hold for the time being as Israel’s focus shifted completely to neutralizing the Iranian nuclear and missile threats, the diplomat says.

After a ceasefire was reached on June 22, US President Donald Trump made clear to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wanted to see the war wrapped up in Gaza next, the two sources say.