Hamas Will Not Attend Gaza Cease-Fire Talks as Mediators Try to Secure Deal

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****** Will Not Attend Gaza Cease-***** Talks as Mediators Try to Secure Deal

International mediators were heading to the Middle East for a high-stakes round of negotiations scheduled for Thursday as they raced to lock down an elusive cease-***** in the Gaza Strip that could defuse tensions ahead of an anticipated ******* on ******* by Iran and Hezbollah.

The cease-***** talks, which are set to take place in Doha, Qatar, or Cairo, were expected to include top intelligence officials from Egypt, ******* and the ******* States, as well as the Qatari prime minister.

But as of Tuesday, ****** representatives were not planning to take part. Ahmad Abdul-Hadi, a ****** representative in Lebanon, said in an interview that doing so would mean going “backward to square one,” and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of ******* of dragging out the negotiations.

“Netanyahu is not interested in reaching an agreement that ends the aggression completely, but rather he is deceiving and evading and wants to prolong the war, and even expand it at the regional level,” Mr. Abdul-Hadi said.

******’s decision did not appear to bode well for a breakthrough on Thursday, but it did not mean the group had completely left the bargaining table.

****** leaders have not met directly with ******** officials throughout the war, relying on Qatar and Egypt to act as intermediaries. And many of ******’s most senior political leaders are based in Qatar, a short drive from the offices of Qatari mediators in Doha.

Two officials briefed on the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said that ****** would still be willing to engage with mediators after the meeting if ******* put forward a “serious response” to ******’s latest offer, from early July.

A State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said that Qatari officials had assured the ******* States they would work to have ****** represented at the talks, though he did not say if members of the group would attend in person or would be represented only by intermediaries.

“We fully expect these talks to move forward,” Mr. Patel said.

Asked on Tuesday about the potential for a cease-***** deal, President Biden told reporters that “It’s getting *******” but that he was “not giving up.”

Mr. Netanyahu has rejected accusations that he is stonewalling and has accused ****** of thwarting a deal to stop the fighting and free the remaining hostages who were seized during the ******* it led on ******* on Oct. 7. But Mr. Netanyahu has added new conditions to *******’s demands that his own negotiators ***** have created obstacles to a deal, according to unpublished documents reviewed by The New York Times. His office said he was simply clarifying ambiguities.

While ****** has said a cease-***** agreement should include an end to the war and the complete withdrawal of ******** forces from Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu has said that ******* will not stop fighting until ******’s military and governing capabilities are destroyed.

Last Thursday, Mr. Biden, along with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of Qatar, declared that “the time has come” for a cease-***** and the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

“There is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party for further delay,” the leaders said in a ****** statement. They said they were willing to present a “final bridging proposal” to close a deal between ******* and ******.

At a news conference on Tuesday in Washington, Mr. Patel said that the ******* States was “so clearly committed to this because we think it is in the vital interests of the region.” A cease-***** could create the conditions necessary to “get the region out of this endless cycle of *********,” he said.

Tensions in the Middle East have been running high since ******’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was ******* in an ********** while he was visiting Tehran on July 31, just hours after a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, was ******* in an ******** airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Iran has vowed to retaliate for the ************** on its soil. ******* has not acknowledged that it was behind the **********, but U.S. officials have privately assessed that it was. Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia backed by Iran that has been trading ***** with ******* for months, has promised to avenge Mr. Shukr’s ******.

Mr. Netanyahu has promised to “exact a heavy price for any act of aggression against us, from any quarter.”

********* and ********* leaders have urged Iran not to retaliate, warning that an ******* could set of a broader regional war. But Iran has insisted it has the right to defend its sovereignty.

On Tuesday, Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said that Britain, France and Germany, in issuing a ****** statement calling on Iran to exercise restraint, had ignored ******** attacks in the region.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is firm and resolute in defending its sovereignty and national security, as well as helping to establish lasting stability in the region and creating deterrence against the real origin and main source of insecurity and terrorism in the region,” Mr. Kanani said in a statement.

Iran, he said, “won’t ask for permission from anyone to use its established rights.”

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