Sources in Hamas on Monday told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the terrorist organization is willing to consider Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s proposal for a hostage release deal.
Sisi on Sunday publicly proposed a two-day ceasefire deal in which four Israeli hostages would be released in exchange for terrorist prisoners held in Israel and in the ten days following, negotiations would be held regarding a more extensive deal.
The Hamas sources said that "there is an openness to examining the Egyptian proposal and other proposals. The organization is in the process of formulating a response after learning everything it has received. It is too early to say there is agreement or refusal."
According to the sources, the head of the Hamas negotiation team and the organization’s leader in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, listened to the Egyptian proposal during a meeting held in Cairo several days ago, and later forwarded it to the terrorist organization's leadership for consideration.
Those same sources noted that Hamas emphasized to Egypt and Qatar that it would be flexible in order to stop the war completely and ensure the fulfillment of its conditions which include the complete withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Monday, a source involved in the negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal being conducted in Doha told the Quds Press news agency that Hamas does not support a limited timeframe of several days in which the organization would return some of the hostages and afterwards the fighting would continue.
During previous rounds of negotiations, the United States was pushing an outline for a ceasefire and hostage release deal that Biden first laid out in May, but Hamas has continuously rejected that outline and every other proposal that has been presented to it.