A senior US official said Israel has broadly accepted a six-week ceasefire deal in Gaza and it now remains for Hamas to agree to release hostages in order to effect the offer.
“There’s a framework deal. The Israelis have more or less accepted it,” the official told journalists on condition of anonymity. “Right now, the ball is in the camp of Hamas.”
A source close to Hamas informed AFP earlier on Saturday that a delegation from the group was traveling to Cairo for negotiations on a truce deal.
Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the US have been going back and forth between Israel and Hamas in order to halt the Gaza war before the beginning or Ramadan, which comes on either March 10 or 11.
The delegation from Hamas will meet with Egyptians overlooking the ceasefire negotiations to pursue negotiation developments that seek to stop the Israeli offensive and the war and reach a hostage deal, the source close to Hamas said.
The source stated the delegation will submit Hamas’s official answer to a proposal worked out with Israeli negotiators in Paris late in February.
