Diplomacy intensifies to halt the Israel-Hamas war and prevent wider regional conflict

JERUSALEM -- International diplomacy to prevent the war in Gaza from spreading into a wider regional conflict intensified Friday, with the British and French foreign ministers making a joint trip to Israel while internationally mediated cease-fire talks in Qatar entered their second day.

The new push for an end to the Israel-Hamas war came as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza climbed past 40,000, according to Gaza health authorities, and fears remained high that Iran and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon would attack Israel in retaliation for the killings of top militant leaders.

International mediators believe the best hope for calming tensions would be a deal between Israel and Hamas to halt the fighting and secure the release of Israeli hostages.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné appeared hopeful after meeting Friday with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.

Lammy said Israeli officials told them they were hoping they were on the verge of sealing a deal.

“As we head now to 315 days of war, the time for a deal for those hostages to be returned, for aid to get in in the quantities that are necessary in Gaza and for the fighting to stop is now,” Lammy said.

Speaking alongside him, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne called any action to destabilize negotiations unacceptable. He and Lammy had sent very clear messages to all parties that this was a key moment “because it could lead to peace or war," he said.

Katz said in a statement that he told his British and French counterparts that if Iran attacks Israel, Israel expects its allies not just to help it defend itself, but to join in attacking Iran back.

He also warned Iran — which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in Yemen, all of whom have attacked Israel since the Gaza war started — to stop the attacks.

“Iran is the head of the axis of evil, and the free world must stop it now before it’s too late,” Katz said on X.

On Thursday, the United States, Qatar and Egypt began a new round of cease-fire talks in Qatar.

Hamas, which didn’t participate directly in Thursday’s talks, accuses Israel of adding new demands to a previous proposal that had U.S. and international support and to which Hamas had agreed in principle. Israel accuses Hamas of adding its own new demands.

White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby called the talks an important step. He said a lot of work remains given the complexity of the agreement and that negotiators were focusing on its implementation.

A U.S. official briefed on Thursday’s talks called the discussion “constructive.” The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Friday, a Biden administration official not authorized to comment publicly, said the second day of talks had resumed.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the heavily guarded border on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 250 to Gaza. More than 100 were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November, and around 110 are believed to still be inside Gaza, though Israeli authorities believe around a third of them are dead.

Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive has killed 40,005 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday, without saying how many were militants. Israel’s military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Thursday that Israel had killed more than 17,000 Hamas militants in Gaza in the war, without providing evidence.

Diplomats hoped a cease-fire deal would persuade Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to hold off on retaliating for the killing of a top Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and of Hamas’ top political leader in an explosion in Tehran that was widely blamed on Israel.

Kirby said that Iran has made preparations and could attack soon with little to no warning — and that its rhetoric should be taken seriously.

The mediators have spent months trying to hammer out a three-phase plan in which Hamas would release the hostages in exchange for a lasting cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Both sides have agreed in principle to the plan President Joe Biden announced on May 31. But Hamas has proposed amendments and Israel has suggested clarifications, leading each side to accuse the other of trying to tank a deal.

Hamas has rejected Israel’s demands, which include a lasting military presence along the border with Egypt and a line bisecting Gaza where it would search Palestinians returning to their homes to root out militants.

Egypt’s foreign minister said Friday that a cease-fire deal was key to tamping down temperatures across the region.

“We will exert all efforts in order to reach an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as this is the basis to stop the escalation,” Badr Abdelaty said during a trip to Lebanon.

In a clear message to Israel, Hezbollah released a video Friday, with Hebrew and English subtitles, showing underground tunnels where trucks were transporting long-range missiles.

A Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was speaking about military affairs, said the missiles in the video have a range of about 140 kilometers (86 miles), capable of reaching deep inside Israel.

Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets, missiles and drones that the group says give it the ability to hit anywhere in Israel. Hezbollah started attacking Israel on Oct. 8 and says it will only stop when the Gaza war ends.

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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Aamer Madhani in Washington, Brian Melley in London, and David Klepper in Chicago contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war