WASHINGTON/DOHA/CAIRO — The White House is scrambling to put forward a new proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas in the coming days, two US officials, two Egyptian security sources and an official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The new proposal aims to work out the major sticking points behind a months-long impasse in talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt seeking a truce in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the US officials said.

Much of the deal has been agreed upon, a senior Biden administration official separately told reporters on Wednesday, but negotiators were still trying to hammer out solutions to two main obstacles.

Those are Israel’s demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor, a buffer zone in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt, and the specific individuals who would be included in an exchange of Hamas hostages and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, said the administration official, who declined to be identified.

The first US official said a new draft accord could be produced next week or even sooner. “The feeling is the time is up. Don’t be surprised if you see (the revised draft) this weekend,” that official said.

The administration official said Hamas’ killing of six hostages, whose bodies were returned to Israel over the weekend, complicated the effort. “We all feel the urgency,” the administration official said. CIA Director William Burns, the lead US negotiator, heads the small group of senior US officials working on the draft which includes White House coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the first US official said.

“There is a very strong perception on the part of the negotiators that the cease-fire is slipping away,” the first US official said, underscoring the urgency underpinning the effort.

Since Mr. Blinken’s latest tour of the region last month failed to produce a breakthrough, mediators have kept up working-level discussions, and those talks are continuing, the first US official said.

The Egyptian sources said the US was shifting from a more consultative approach to trying to impose a cease-fire plan on the parties.

Both US officials said the revised plan would not be a final take-it-or-leave it offer and that Washington would continue working towards a cease-fire if it fell through.

ISRAELI PRESENCE
On Tuesday, five Arab countries including regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia as well as the Palestinian Authority joined Egypt in rejecting Israel’s demand to keep its troops deployed in the Philadelphi corridor. On Wednesday, Turkey issued a similar statement.

Parts of the three-phase agreement already accepted by both sides require Israel to withdraw from all densely populated areas of Gaza in the first phase of the deal. The senior administration official said the current dispute is whether the corridor qualifies as a densely populated area.

“So we’re really talking here about Phase One, about what that configuration will look like,” the official added.

The US group is considering areas of the Philadelphi corridor where Israeli troops would have to withdraw and areas where they could stay, the first US official said.

At talks in Qatar on Monday, an Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea told mediators that Israel was willing to withdraw its troops from the corridor after the first 42-day phase of a ceasefire, the official with knowledge of the talks said.

But hours later Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a news conference in Jerusalem and insisted that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, comments the official said were made after the delegation had returned home.

Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday repeated his outright rejection of a withdrawal from the corridor in the first phase of a deal. Israel would only agree to a permanent ceasefire after that if there were guarantees the corridor could never be used as route for smuggling weapons and supplies into Gaza for Hamas.

“This has placed the mediating parties in a difficult position. If Israel remains in the Philadelphi corridor, neither Egypt nor Hamas would agree to any agreement,” the official with knowledge of the matter said.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.

Senior Hamas official Izzat Al Risheq told Reuters on Wednesday that the group would deal with a new proposal that “responds to the demands of the resistance and the demands of our people,” without providing specifics. Hamas said in a statement there was no need for new proposals, and accused Mr. Netanyahu of seeking to thwart a deal.

Israel seized control of the Philadelphi corridor in May, saying it was used by Hamas to smuggle weapons and banned material into its tunnels to Gaza. — Reuters

ATLANTA — A 14-year-old boy killed two fellow students and two teachers and wounded nine others in a shooting at a Georgia high school on Wednesday, jolting the United States with the first mass campus shooting since the start of the school year.

The suspect, who had been interviewed by law enforcement last year over online threats about committing a school shooting, was taken into custody shortly after the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, investigators said.

He was identified as Colt Gray, and will be charged and tried as an adult, Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told a press conference.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said the gunman, armed with an “AR platform style weapon,” or semiautomatic rifle, was quickly confronted by deputies assigned to the school and that the suspect immediately got on the ground and surrendered.

Once under arrest the suspect was speaking with investigators, who believe he was acting alone, but they declined to say if they knew what motivated him.

Officials identified those killed as two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53. All nine of those hospitalized were expected to recover, Mr. Smith told reporters.

“Pure evil did what happened today,” Mr. Smith said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation later issued a statement revealing that it had investigated online threats to commit a school shooting in 2023 and local law enforcement interviewed a 13-year-old subject and his father in nearby Jackson County. The statement did not identify the teen, but Georgia officials said the statement was in connection to the subject in custody.

“The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject,” the FBI said, adding that there was no probable cause to make an arrest.

The shooting revived both the national debate about gun control and the outpouring of grief that follows in a country where such outbursts occur with some regularity.

People in Winder, a city of 18,000 some 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Atlanta, gathered in a park for a prayer vigil later Wednesday night.

Some leaned on each other or bowed their heads in prayer, while others lit candles to honor the dead.

“We are all hurting. Because when something affects one of us it affects us all,” said Power Evans, a city councilman who addressed the gathering. “I know that here tonight, all of us are going to come together. We’re going to love on one another… We’re all family. We’re all neighbors.”

BIDEN SEEKS GUN LEGISLATION
The White House said in a statement that President Joseph R. Biden had been briefed on the shooting “and his administration will continue coordinating with federal, state, and local officials as we receive more information.”

“Jill and I are mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence and thinking of all of the survivors whose lives are forever changed,” Biden said in a statement, calling on Republicans to work with Democrats to pass “common-sense gun safety legislation.”

Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee for president, called the shooting a “senseless tragedy.”

“We’ve got to stop it. We have to end this epidemic of gun violence,” Harris said at the start of a campaign event in New Hampshire.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, wrote on social media that “Our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, GA. These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”

Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp, asked at a press conference what could be done to prevent shootings, said: “Today is not the day for politics or policy. Today is the day for an investigation, to mourn these precious Georgians that we have lost.”

The shooting was the first “planned attack” at a school this fall, said David Riedman, who runs the K-12 School Shooting Database. Apalachee students returned to school last month; many other students in the US are returning this week.

The US has seen hundreds of shootings inside schools and colleges in the past two decades, with the deadliest resulting in over 30 deaths at Virginia Tech in 2007. The carnage has intensified the pitched debate over gun laws and the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which enshrines the right “to keep and bear arms.” — Reuters