JERUSALEM >> The Israeli military said Sunday that it had withdrawn a division of ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip, as international mediators gathered with hopes of brokering a temporary cease-fire six months into a war that has now become the longest involving Israel since the 1980s.

Israel has significantly reduced the number of troops it has on the ground in Gaza over the past several months. Only a fraction of the soldiers that it deployed in the territory earlier in the war against Hamas remain.

Now, the last group of Israeli soldiers in the southern city of Khan Younis has left Gaza “to recuperate and prepare for future operations,” the army said. The withdrawal of the soldiers, members of the 98th Division, means that no Israeli troops are actively maneuvering in southern Gaza, the Israeli news media reported.

But Israeli officials made clear that the army would stay in other parts of Gaza to preserve its “freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence-based operations.”

The drawdown from Khan Younis, about four months after Israeli forces invaded southern Gaza, raised questions about Israel’s plans in the face of widespread calls for it to deescalate the conflict. It was also unclear what it might signal about Israel’s oft-stated plan to invade the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1 million people have fled to escape the fighting.

Even the Biden administration appeared to be uncertain.

“It’s hard to know exactly what that tells us right now,” John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “As we understand it, and through their public announcements, it is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months, and not necessarily, that we can tell, indicative of some coming new operation for these troops.”Indeed, even as the army exited Khan Younis, Israel and its military remained on high alert Sunday as it anticipated retribution from Iran for a recent strike in Syria that killed seven senior Iranian military officers. Iran’s leaders have pledged to avenge the killings.

On Sunday, the Israeli government, which has not publicly taken responsibility for the strike, said it was ready to respond if Iran retaliated. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said groups backed by Iran had been behind “many attacks” on Israel over the past six months and that they had been “intensifying their threats.”

Despite the announced troop withdrawal, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military was preparing for “follow-up missions” that included Rafah. “We will reach a point when Hamas no longer controls the Gaza Strip and does not function as a military framework that poses a threat to the citizens of the state of Israel,” he said.

With those tensions in the backdrop, officials from the United States, Egypt and Qatar began meeting in Cairo on Sunday, as were delegations from Israel and from Hamas. Their aim was to hammer out an agreement on a temporary cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages Hamas took when it led an attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

The outlines of a possible agreement have been clear for months, but the details have proved divisive. The terms would include, among other conditions, a cease-fire, the release of the hostages and the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Hamas said Saturday that a delegation of its leadership would be in Cairo but that it was sticking to an earlier proposal that it submitted in mid-March, including total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Israeli officials vehemently reject.