Talks on a hostage release deal held Tuesday in Cairo were productive and serious, but did not yet arrive at a breakthrough that would result in a final deal, a US official said, according to CNN.
The negotiations will continue, the official added.
A second US official told CNN the outstanding area of disagreement among the parties in the hostage talks is the ratio of Palestinian Arab prisoners to hostages that would be released as part of the deal.
An Israeli official told the network that the Israeli delegation is on its way back from Cairo. Meanwhile, two senior Hamas members told CNN that so far there are no plans for a delegation from Hamas to travel to Egypt this week.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to authorize a high-ranking Israeli delegation to go to Cairo for the talks on a deal.
The Israeli members of the delegation, which includes Mossad chief David Barnea and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar, met with the head of the CIA, the head of Egyptian intelligence and the Qatari prime minister in order to advance the negotiations for the release of the hostages.
Ahead of the Cairo summit, Israel formulated a new draft of its position regarding an agreement for the release of hostages, Kan 11 News reported.
According to the report, sources familiar with the details of the negotiations say that the new draft has "a certain flexibility" on the part of Israel, hoping to lead to a breakthrough in the talks.
This past Friday, it was reported that Israel has decided to reject most of Hamas’ demands for a new hostage release deal.
According to the report, the War Cabinet agreed that Hamas' demands are ridiculous and unrealistic, and therefore there is no point in attending talks in Egypt until those demands are watered down.
Last week, Hamas finally provided the Qatari government with its response to the proposed deal after days of dragging its feet.
As a precondition for any arrangement, Hamas demanded a complete halt to Israeli military activity in Gaza, including its airspace.
In addition, the terror group demanded that the hostages to be freed in the first stage would be women, children, the sick, and the elderly, in exchange for the release of all Palestinian Arab women, children, and men aged 50 and above currently held by Israel.
This would include approximately 1,500 other Palestinian Arab prisoners held by Israel, including 500 convicted of murder who are serving life or lengthy sentences.
Despite all the conditions that Hamas set for a deal, a senior Biden administration official told NBC News that the response provided by the terrorist organization was “generally positive.”