CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met CIA director William Burns Tuesday in Cairo, where US and Israeli delegations discussed efforts for a Gaza truce. El-Sisi’s office said the two men “discussed the latest developments in joint efforts to reach a truce and ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip,” where Israeli troops, backed by tanks and warplanes, stepped up their operations in Gaza City on Monday. Mediators Egypt and Qatar have been engaged in months of negotiations aimed at reaching a truce and hostage release deal for Gaza. The talks have intensified in recent days after Hamas signalled it was ready to drop its insistence on a lasting Israeli ceasefire in the first phase of any truce deal. The war, which entered its 10th month this week, erupted with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.