Egypt Cease-Fire Delegation to Israel  04/26 06:30

   Egypt sent a high-level delegation to Israel on Friday with the hope of 
brokering a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, two officials said. At the 
same time, it warned that a possible Israeli offensive focused on Gaza's city 
of Rafah -- on the border with Egypt -- could have catastrophic consequences 
for regional stability.

   CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt sent a high-level delegation to Israel on Friday with 
the hope of brokering a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, two officials 
said. At the same time, it warned that a possible Israeli offensive focused on 
Gaza's city of Rafah -- on the border with Egypt -- could have catastrophic 
consequences for regional stability.

   Egypt's top intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, is leading the delegation 
and plans to discuss with Israel a "new vision" for a prolonged cease-fire in 
Gaza, an Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss 
the mission freely.

   As the war drags on and casualties mount, there has been growing 
international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach an agreement on a cease 
fire.

   Friday's talks will focus at first on a limited exchange of hostages held by 
Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of a significant number of 
displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza "with minimum 
restrictions," the Egyptian official said.

   The hope is that negotiations will then continue, with the goal of a larger 
deal to end the war, he said.

   The official said mediators are working on a compromise that will answer 
most of both parties' main demands.

   Hamas has said it will not back down from its demands for a permanent 
cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, both of which Israel has 
rejected. Israel says it will continue military operations until Hamas is 
defeated and that it will retain a security presence in Gaza afterwards.

   Ahead of the talks, senior Hamas official Basem Naim told The Associated 
Press "there is nothing new from our side," when asked about the negotiations.

   Overnight, Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and 
artillery shells at an Israeli military convoy in a disputed border area, 
killing an Israeli civilian.

   Hezbollah said its fighters ambushed the convoy shortly before midnight 
Thursday, destroying two vehicles. The Israeli military said the ambush wounded 
an Israeli civilian doing infrastructure work, and that he later died of his 
wounds.

   Low-intensity fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border has repeatedly 
threatened to boil over as Israel has targeted senior Hezbollah militants in 
recent months.

   Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border. 
On the Israeli side, the cross-border fighting has killed 10 civilians and 12 
soldiers, while in Lebanon, more than 350 people have been killed, including 50 
civilians and 271 Hezbollah members.

   Meantime, Israel has been conducting near-daily raids on Rafah, a city in 
which more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have sought refuge.

   The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in an 
area of southern Israel that is close to Rafah, in apparent preparations for an 
invasion of the city.

   Rafah also abuts the Gaza-Egypt border. While in Israel, Kamel, who heads 
Egypt's General Intelligence Service, plans to make clear that Egypt "will not 
tolerate" Israel's deployments of troops along that border, the Egyptian 
official said.

   The official said Egypt shared intelligence with the United States and 
European countries showing that a Rafah offensive would inflame the entire 
region.

   A Western diplomat in Cairo also said that Egypt has intensified its efforts 
in recent days to reach a compromise and establish a short cease-fire in Gaza 
that will help negotiate a longer truce and avert a Rafah offensive.

   The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the 
developments.

   On Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi cautioned that an 
Israeli attack on Rafah would have "catastrophic consequences on the 
humanitarian situation in the strip, as well as the regional peace and 
security."

   El-Sissi's comments came in a phone call with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of 
The Netherlands, the Egyptian leader's office said.

   Egypt has also said an attack on Rafah would violate the decades-old peace 
deal between Egypt and Israel.

   The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the Hamas' Oct. 7 raid into southern 
Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and 
took some 250 people as hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding 
around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

   More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to 
local health officials, around two-thirds of them children and women.