Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to send a team of negotiators to discuss a hostage release deal with Hamas.
US President Joe Biden welcomed the development, which comes a day after Hamas responded to a Gaza ceasefire plan it presented in late May. The latest indirect negotiations took place in Cairo earlier this month.
Details of Hamas’s latest response have not been made public, but a Palestinian official told the BBC the group was no longer demanding a complete ceasefire at the start of Mr Biden’s plan.
A senior U.S. administration official said Hamas had agreed to “fairly significant adjustments” to its position.
“We have managed to break a critical impasse,” the US official said, while stressing that “this does not mean that this agreement will be concluded in a matter of days.”
President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu held a phone call Thursday, focusing on the hostages and cease-fire negotiations, the official said.
On Wednesday, Hamas’ political leadership said it had contacted mediators from Egypt and Qatar over ideas it had discussed in an effort to reach an agreement.
Hamas has so far demanded an end to the war and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Israel has said it will accept only a temporary truce in the fighting until it eliminates Hamas.
When he announced the plan on May 31, President Biden said it was based on a more detailed Israeli proposal and had three phases.
The first would include a six-week “complete and absolute ceasefire,” the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas of Gaza and the exchange of some hostages – including women, the elderly and the sick or wounded – for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
The second phase would involve the release of all remaining hostages and a “definitive end to hostilities.” The third phase would involve the launch of a vast plan to rebuild Gaza and the return of the remains of the deceased hostages.
After the two leaders’ phone call on Thursday, the Israeli government said in a statement: “Prime Minister Netanyahu informed President Biden of his decision to send a delegation to continue hostage negotiations and reiterated the principles to which Israel is committed, in particular its commitment to ending the war only after all its objectives have been achieved.”
Mr Netanyahu said his goals were the return of all remaining hostages, the destruction of Hamas’ military and government capabilities and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
The White House said Mr Biden “welcomed the prime minister’s decision to authorise his negotiators to engage with the American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators with the aim of concluding the agreement”.
A source within the Israeli negotiating team told Reuters news agency that Hamas’ response included “a very significant breakthrough” and that there was “an agreement with a real chance of being implemented”.
A senior Palestinian official told the BBC on Thursday that Hamas had dropped its demands for a complete ceasefire. Its new conditions, he said, included the withdrawal of Israeli forces from a strip of land along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphia Corridor, and from the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
The source, who was briefed on Hamas’ response to the mediators, added that the mood was positive. “We will soon begin a new round of negotiations,” he said.
The United States has accused Hamas of blocking any progress toward a ceasefire.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the group was the “only exception” to international support for the ceasefire proposal. Hamas, he said, had created “gaps … by not saying yes to a proposal that everyone, including the Israelis, had said yes to.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu said he was “committed to the Israeli proposal welcomed by President Biden,” although he did not publicly endorse the broad outlines as presented.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others to Gaza as hostages.
At least 38,010 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as a result of the Israeli offensive, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Hamas and allied armed groups are still believed to be holding 116 hostages taken on October 7. Israeli authorities estimate that at least 42 of them are dead.
The others were released, rescued or their bodies recovered.
Four other Israelis have been held hostage since 2014 and 2015, two of whom are presumed dead.
Additional reporting by Rushdi Aboualouf in Istanbul
