'Progress made' in Cairo talks on Gaza truce: White House

WASHINGTON — Talks in Cairo on reaching a Gaza truce have made progress, the White House said Friday, as it urged Israel and Hamas to move forward.

The White House confirmed that CIA chief William Burns and senior official Brett McGurk were taking part in discussions which started at a preliminary level Thursday evening.

"There has been progress made. We need now for both sides to come together and work towards implementation," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

"The preliminary talks that we had going into Cairo last night were constructive in nature. So we want to see that same sort of momentum continue here over the next couple of days," he said.

Kirby said that reports that the diplomacy was "near collapse" were inaccurate.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the Middle East this week and said that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was onboard with a US proposal to bridge gaps and reach a ceasefire in the more than 10-month conflict.

Kirby said that the United States continued to believe that Netanyahu accepted the proposal, even though the right-wing leader has insisted on Israeli troops staying on the Gaza-Egypt border, butting heads with both Washington and Cairo.

Kirby appealed again to Hamas to accept the proposal, which was laid out last week in talks in the Qatari capital Doha.

"Think about what this deal will do for the people of Gaza. It gets them a period of calm and a potential end of the war and the violence and the bloodshed," Kirby said.

"It also gets them, because of the stop in the fighting, an incredible opportunity for all of us -- and I mean all of us, including the United States -- to dramatically increase the humanitarian assistance that's getting in," he said.