WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (Reuters) - The planned targets for U.S. strikes in Iraq and Syria in response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by a drone in Jordan include "Iranian personnel and facilities", CBS News reported on Thursday, citing American officials.

The United States has assessed that the drone, which also wounded more than 40 people, was made by Iran, four U.S. officials told Reuters. Sources said Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards were pulling senior officers out of Syria.

The CBS report follows days of conjecture about how Washington would retaliate after three U.S. soldiers were killed on Saturday in a strike on their base.

The fatalities were the first U.S. deaths in an escalation of violence across the Middle East since Israel's war in Gaza began in October.

Even as fighting has intensified this week, diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave have accelerated.

Qatari and Egyptian mediators presented Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza, with the first concrete proposal for an extended halt to fighting, agreed with Israel and the U.S. at talks in Paris last week.

A Palestinian official close to the negotiations told Reuters the text envisages a first phase of 40 days, during which fighting would cease while Hamas freed remaining civilians among the more than 100 hostages it still holds.
Further phases would see the handover of Israeli soldiers and bodies of dead hostages.

Such a long pause would be a first since Oct. 7, when Hamas fighters attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, precipitating an Israeli offensive that has laid waste to much of Gaza.

Health officials in the enclave said on Thursday the confirmed Palestinian death toll had risen above 27,000, with thousands more dead still lying under the rubble.

A Palestinian official said Hamas was unlikely to reject the proposal outright, but would demand guarantees that fighting would not resume, something Israel has not agreed to.

Photo from Reuters