U.S. officials say a six-week ceasefire is possible in Gaza and Hamas must decide now.
The United States says Israel supports the framework of the proposed Gaza ceasefire and prisoner release agreement in principle, and that it is up to the Palestinian group Hamas to agree to it.
“There is a framework agreement. The Israelis have more or less accepted it,” a senior US official in the Biden administration told reporters on a conference call on Saturday.
“Right now, the ball is in Hamas' camp,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
The announcement came a day before talks on a ceasefire agreement are scheduled to resume in Egypt.
International mediators have been working for weeks to broker an agreement to suspend fighting before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10.
U.S. officials said the proposed framework includes a six-week ceasefire and the release of Hamas's sick, wounded, elderly, women and other vulnerable prisoners.
A deal would also likely allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza, who humanitarian officials say are at risk of starvation.
Israel has severely restricted the entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies into the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7.
“Stalemate”
Reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith said on Saturday that news of the framework agreement “sounds like an important development to Americans, because they want it to sound like an important development. ” he said.
“However, it is clear that this proposal is an attempt to further increase pressure on Hamas ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins just a week from now.” It added that it would impose a six-week suspension of fighting. and a promise to provide even more aid in a desperate time.
Earlier this week, Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told Al Jazeera that “the gulf remains wide” before reaching an agreement with Israel, with Palestinian groups calling for a full ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. .
Naim's comments followed Joe Biden's remarks on Monday that there was only a week left until a ceasefire, a comment the US president later retracted.
Al Jazeera's Hamda Sarhat, reporting from Tel Aviv, said there was no response from the Israeli side to comments by senior Biden administration officials about the ceasefire framework.
“All we've heard in the last week is an impasse on this deal and contradictory reports about where delegations are or are not being sent,” she said.
In recent days, several Israeli media outlets have reported that the Israeli delegation will not take part in the next round of ceasefire negotiations.
A senior Egyptian official said mediators Egypt and Qatar expected to receive a response from Hamas during the Cairo talks, which are reportedly scheduled to begin on Sunday. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not officially authorized to discuss the sensitive talks.
Egyptian intelligence sources and Hamas officials told Reuters that Hamas remains committed to the fact that a temporary ceasefire must be the beginning of a process towards a complete end to the war.
However, Egyptian sources also said assurances were provided 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 ceasefire brokered by Qatar in November, 105 prisoners were released in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.