Israel will not send a delegation to Cairo to talk about an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of Gaza hostages, an Israeli official told CNN on Sunday.
The official said the reason was that Hamas had not responded to two Israeli demands: a list of hostages specifying which are alive and which are dead; and confirmation of the proportion of Palestinian prisoners who will be released from Israeli jails in exchange for hostages.
The official asked not to be identified as they discussed diplomatic maneuvers behind closed doors.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Sunday for talks expected to end the fighting.
The decision not to send an Israeli delegation was made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in coordination with Mossad director David Barnea, who has been a key Israeli negotiator, after Barnea received a message that Hamas had not responded to requests. conditions, the Israeli official said.
A senior Hamas official did not immediately respond to a CNN question about whether the militant group had responded to Israel's conditions.
More background: Netanyahu outlined the terms in a speech on Thursday, saying: “I demand to know in advance the names of all the hostages who will be included in the scheme. I have yet to receive an answer to both questions and it is too early to say, despite our will, whether we will achieve an outline for a further publication in the coming days.
The Israeli decision that no delegation will go to Cairo comes a day after a senior Biden administration official told reporters that Israel had “basically accepted” a proposal for a six-week ceasefire.
