There is an agreement for a possible six-week truce in Gaza, a US official says, and Hamas must decide now.
The United States says Israel has essentially endorsed a framework for a proposed Gaza ceasefire and captive release agreement, and it is now up to the Palestinian group Hamas to accept it.
“There is a framework agreement. The Israelis have more or less accepted it,” a senior US official in the Biden administration told reporters in a conference call on Saturday.
“Right now, the ball is in Hamas's court,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The announcement comes a day before talks to reach a truce agreement resume in Egypt.
International mediators have been working for weeks to negotiate a deal to end the fighting before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10.
The framework proposal includes a six-week ceasefire as well as Hamas's release of captives considered vulnerable, including the sick, wounded, elderly and women, the US official said.
A deal would also likely allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza, who humanitarian officials say are under threat of famine.
Israel has severely restricted the entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies into the Gaza Strip since its war began on October 7.
'Impassed stalemates'
News of the framework agreement “seems like a significant breakthrough by the Americans because they want it to sound like a significant breakthrough,” said Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.
“But it clearly looks like an attempt to increase pressure on Hamas before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan begins in just over a week,” he added, saying the proposal presents them with a six-week pause in fighting. and the promise of more aid deliveries in a desperate time.
Earlier this week, Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told Al Jazeera that “the gap is still wide” to reach an agreement with Israel, as the Palestinian group is calling for a complete ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Naim's comments followed Joe Biden's comments on Monday that a truce was a week away, comments the US president later rejected.
Al Jazeera's Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Tel Aviv, said there had been no Israeli response to the Biden administration official's comments on the ceasefire framework.
“Over the last week, all we have heard is impasses regarding this agreement and conflicting reports about where delegations are or are not being sent,” he said.
In recent days, several Israeli media outlets have reported that there will not be an Israeli delegation attending the next round of truce talks.
A senior Egyptian official said mediators Egypt and Qatar are expected to receive a response from Hamas during Cairo talks reportedly set to begin on Sunday. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized publicly to discuss the sensitive talks.
Hamas has not backed down from its position that a temporary truce should be the start of a process to end the war completely, Egyptian sources and a Hamas official told the Reuters news agency.
However, Egyptian sources also said that assurances had been offered to Hamas that the terms of a permanent ceasefire would be worked out in the second and third phases of the agreement.
During a week-long truce brokered by Qatar in November, 105 captives were freed in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.
