Biden stresses urgency of Gaza truce

NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters): US President Joe Biden, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, stressed the urgent need to conclude a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal and pointed to upcoming Cairo talks as crucial, the White House said.
Their call followed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's whirlwind trip to the Middle East that ended on Tuesday without an agreement between Israel and Hamas militants on a truce in the Palestinian enclave.
Negotiators who have struggled for months to conclude a ceasefire deal plan to meet in the coming days in Cairo.
"The president stressed the urgency of bringing the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles," a White House statement about the call said.
Israel kills top Fatah leader
in Lebanon attack
The Israeli military killed a senior Palestinian in Lebanon on Wednesday, leading to accusations from the Fatah movement that Israel was trying to ignite a regional war.
The strike that killed Khalil Maqdah, described by Fatah as "one of the leaders" of its armed wing in Lebanon, came hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and "made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure," the president wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Fatah, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and rivals the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers Hamas, said Maqdah was killed near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.
Israel accused him of "directing attacks and smuggling weapons" to the West Bank and collaborating with Iranian forces.
His killing marked the first time Israel has targeted a senior Fatah member in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes with Lebanese, mostly from Hezbollah, during the Gaza war.
Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah's central committee, told AFP that the "assassination... is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region".
Blinken, who left Qatar late Tuesday apparently empty-handed, appealed to Hamas to urgently accept a US-drafted truce proposal, while also publicly disagreeing with Israel over its future presence in the besieged Gaza Strip.
"Time is of the essence," Blinken said before flying out of Doha after stops in Egypt and Israel.