Latest round of Middle East cease-fire talks fail as fears for wider conflict grow

Israel says that early on Sunday it launched a “preemptive” strike against Hezbollah targets . Military officials say they had intelligence that the Iran-backed militants were about to attack.

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Fears of a wider regional conflict in the Middle East were heightened yesterday, when Hezbollah and Israel exchanged some of the fiercest fire since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

And all of this while high-level talks in Cairo wrapped up yesterday. Officials were hoping to inch Hamas and Israel closer to a cease-fire deal, but that seems still very elusive.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi joins us from the city of Haifa, in Northern Israel. What happened with the cease-fire talks?

HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Well, at least we definitely know that no deal was reached, and it's unknown how much progress was made. Israel and Hamas said its delegations left Cairo late yesterday. Israel did not comment about the talks at all. Hamas said it was present, but it didn't participate in the talks, and said it was later briefed by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Hamas also reiterated what it's been saying for the past few weeks. It wants Israel to accept a deal that was agreed upon last month, which Hamas says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps making changes to.

You know, NPR's Gaza producer, Anas Baba - he talked to some Palestinians there about what they thought of these drawn-out talks, and many voiced frustration and just want the end of the war. Here's 29-year-old Ahmed Helis (ph), who said he's being forced to evacuate one more time by the Israeli military from Central Gaza.

AHMED HELIS: (Non-English language spoken).

AL-SHALCHI: Helis says he doesn't have an ounce of hope. He thinks the war will drag on for at least another year, and he doesn't even follow the news of the talks anymore.

MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, wow. Another year, possibly, he says. Well, now, while these officials were meeting, Israel and Hezbollah attacked each other in a, you know, pretty serious way yesterday.

AL-SHALCHI: That's right. Hezbollah and Iran have been keeping the region on edge this month. They both promised to avenge the Israeli killings of a top Hezbollah leader in Beirut and Hamas' leader in Tehran. And, of course, you know, a retaliation could potentially lead to a wider regional conflict, so when the Israeli military said it had launched a major attack in southern Lebanon yesterday, many in Israel believed that it was the beginning of that wider war. Israel called it a preemptive attack because it says it got intelligence that Hezbollah was going to strike first. Hezbollah responded with its own set of rockets and drones. But then, by late morning, Hezbollah said it had finished its operations for the day, and Israel deescalated as well.

MARTÍNEZ: And then let's not forget that while all these sides are talking - and also exchanging fire - Israeli strikes on Gaza continue, so what do we know about what's continuing to happen there?

AL-SHALCHI: Well, exactly. You know, just yesterday, Gaza health officials said that Israeli military strikes killed 71 Palestinians. They've also put the death toll, of course, now at over 40,000 Palestinians killed since the beginning of the war. The U.N. says Israeli evacuation orders have now displaced 90% of the 2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza since October, so those humanitarian zones that Palestinians find some relative shelter are shrinking, but those zones are also - been struck by the Israeli military, killing hundreds of Palestinians. And, you know, the humanitarian crisis, of course, is getting worse. The first case of polio was discovered in a 10-month-old baby two weeks ago. The U.N. has called for a mini cease-fire to give medical workers a chance to vaccinate hundreds of children, and we're still waiting to hear if that will happen.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi - thank you very much.

AL-SHALCHI: You're welcome.

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