Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said in Beirut Friday that a Gaza ceasefire was the "key" to preventing the region from slipping into all-out war.
His visit comes after Gaza ceasefire talks, mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, restarted in Doha on Thursday, and follows trips to Beirut this week by US envoy Amos Hochstein and French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne.
Cairo, Doha and Washington are making every effort to quickly reach a Gaza deal "that leads to an immediate ceasefire, an end to the killing of civilians, and a prisoner and hostage exchange", Abdelatty said after meeting his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib.
"This is the key to the start of the solution in this region and the start of de-escalation," he said.
According to AFP, Lebanon's Hezbollah has traded near daily fire with the Israeli army in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7.
But the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran late last month in an attack blamed on Israel, hours after an Israeli strike killed a top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, has sent diplomats scrambling to avert a wider conflict, after Iran and Hezbollah vowed to respond.
Abdelatty expressed hope for "good intentions and the political will to reach this urgent deal" in Gaza, which he said would lead to "reducing the level of tension in the region, and de-escalation".
Cairo would "make every possible effort to spare Lebanon and its brotherly people the woes of any uncalculated escalation", he added.
The cross-border violence has killed some 570 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters -- one of them on Friday -- but including at least 118 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
Hezbollah and Israel fought a devastating war in 2006.
