The latest flurry of Gaza cease-fire talks — the back-and-forth over now-familiar sticking points and appeals from around the world — obscures a grim truth about the monthslong efforts to end the Israeli war on Gaza and free scores of hostages.

Any deal requires the signatures of two men: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Ongoing talks aimed at bringing about a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are shifting to the Qatari capital of Doha after several days of intense negotiations in Cairo, according to a U.S. official.

A round of high-level talks in Cairo meant to bring about a cease-fire and hostage deal to at least create a temporary pause in the war ended Sunday without a final agreement. Those talks included CIA director William Burns and David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. A Hamas delegation was briefed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators but have not directly taken part in negotiations.

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 16 people, including five women and three children.

Most were killed in strikes overnight and into Wednesday on the southern city of Khan Younis, which has come under heavy bombardment over the past two months. Their bodies were taken to the city’s Nasser Hospital, where an Associated Press journalist confirmed the toll.

Israel launched raids across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, where its forces killed at least nine Palestinians and sealed off the volatile city of Jenin, according to Palestinian officials.

Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the ongoing war there.

President Joe Biden ordered the construction of a temporary pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza earlier this year even as some staffers for the U.S. Agency for International Development expressed concerns that the effort would be difficult to pull off and undercut the effort to persuade Israel to open "more efficient" land crossings to get food into the territory, according to a USAID inspector general report published Tuesday.

Biden announced plans to use the temporary pier in his State of the Union address in March to hasten the delivery of aid to the Palestinian territory besieged by war between Israel and Hamas.

President Joe Biden's top Middle East adviser has held talks in Doha with senior Qatari leaders on the efforts to complete a cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, as well as on the Qatari prime minister's meeting this week with Iran's president, according to a U.S. official.

White House senior adviser Brett McGurk's talks with Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Tuesday came after the prime minister's Monday visit to Tehran to meet with Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Israeli military said its forces rescued an Israeli hostage in southern Gaza on Tuesday after a "complex operation".

Kaid Alkadi, a 52-year-old Israeli Bedouin, was abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the military said in a statement.

Sixteen evacuation orders by Israel’s military this month have squeezed Gazans into even smaller areas of the territory and the latest has shut the U.N. humanitarian operations center. However, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA is still providing health care and other assistance.

As a result of the orders, several hundred thousand already displaced Palestinians have been forced to move again, and the humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk to about 11% of the entire Gaza Strip, Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told reporters Monday.

Palestinian officials say Jewish settlers rampaged through a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, fatally shooting a Palestinian and wounding three others.

The Israeli military said its forces opened fire to disperse clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, and that it was investigating the reported fatality.

The United States assesses there is still a threat of a new attack on Israel by Iran or its proxies, the Pentagon said, after Lebanon's Hezbollah launched a rocket and drone barrage over the weekend.