U.S. and Arab me­di­a­tors made sig­nif­i­cant progress overnight to­ward bro­ker­ing a cease­fire in the Is­rael-Hamas war and the re­lease of scores of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, but a deal hasn’t been reached yet, of­fi­cials said Mon­day.

Four of­fi­cials ac­knowl­edged that progress has been made and said the com­ing days would be crit­i­cal for end­ing more than 15 months of fight­ing that has desta­bi­lized the Mid­dle East. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they weren’t au­tho­rized to dis­cuss the talks.

A US of­fi­cial briefed on the ne­go­ti­a­tions said all sides are “clos­er than we’ve ever been, but it could still fall apart.” The of­fi­cial de­clined to pre­dict the tim­ing of a po­ten­tial agree­ment be­cause he said it is just too un­cer­tain, with mul­ti­ple mov­ing parts still in play.

Two oth­er of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing one as­so­ci­at­ed with Hamas, said that there were still a num­ber of hur­dles to clear. On sev­er­al oc­ca­sions over the past year, U.S. lead­ers have said that they were on the verge of reach­ing a deal, on­ly to have the talks stall.

An­oth­er per­son fa­mil­iar with the talks said there had been a break­through overnight and that there was a pro­posed deal on the ta­ble. Is­raeli and Hamas ne­go­tia­tors will now take it back to their lead­ers for fi­nal ap­proval, the per­son said.

The per­son said that me­di­a­tors from the Gulf coun­try of Qatar had put re­newed pres­sure on Hamas to ac­cept the agree­ment, while U.S. Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s en­voy, Steve Witkoff, was press­ing the Is­raelis. Witkoff re­cent­ly joined the ne­go­ti­a­tions and has been in the re­gion in re­cent days.

The per­son said that the me­di­a­tors had hand­ed off the draft deal to each side and that the next 24 hours would be piv­otal.

An Egypt­ian of­fi­cial said that there had been good progress overnight, but that it would like­ly take a few more days, and that the sides were aim­ing for a deal be­fore Trump’s in­au­gu­ra­tion on Jan. 20. A third of­fi­cial said that the talks were in a good place, but hadn’t been wrapped up. That of­fi­cial al­so as­sessed that a deal was pos­si­ble be­fore the in­au­gu­ra­tion.

Asked about the talks at a press con­fer­ence, Is­raeli For­eign Min­is­ter Gideon Saar said “progress has been made, and I hope that with­in a short time we will see things hap­pen­ing. But it is still to be proved.”

A Hamas of­fi­cial said a num­ber of con­tentious is­sues still need to be re­solved, in­clud­ing an Is­raeli com­mit­ment to end­ing the war and de­tails about the with­draw­al of Is­raeli troops and the hostage-pris­on­er ex­change. The of­fi­cial wasn’t au­tho­rized to brief me­dia and spoke anony­mous­ly.

The Egypt­ian of­fi­cial con­firmed that those is­sues were still be­ing dis­cussed.

Months of ne­go­ti­a­tions have re­peat­ed­ly stalled

The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, along with Egypt and Qatar, has spent more than a year try­ing to bro­ker an agree­ment to end the dead­liest war ever fought be­tween Is­raelis and Pales­tini­ans and se­cure the re­lease of scores of hostages cap­tured in Hamas’ at­tack on south­ern Is­rael on Oct. 7, 2023, which trig­gered the con­flict.

But the sides have been di­vid­ed over the de­tails of the planned ex­change of hostages for Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers held by Is­rael, as well as the na­ture of the cease­fire it­self. Hamas has said that it won’t re­lease the re­main­ing cap­tives with­out an end to the war, while Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu has vowed to con­tin­ue the cam­paign un­til “to­tal vic­to­ry” over the mil­i­tant group.

Un­der dis­cus­sion now is a phased cease­fire. Ne­tanyahu has re­peat­ed­ly sig­nalled that he is com­mit­ted on­ly to the first phase, a par­tial hostage re­lease in ex­change for a week­s­long halt in fight­ing. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of a last­ing cease­fire and oth­er is­sues would be ne­go­ti­at­ed af­ter the first phase be­gins. Hamas has de­mand­ed a full with­draw­al and com­plete end to the war, and is hop­ing that this first phase will lead to that out­come.

A deal could weak­en Ne­tanyahu’s coali­tion, which in­cludes two far-right fac­tions that have threat­ened to leave the gov­ern­ment if Is­rael makes too many con­ces­sions. Mem­bers of the op­po­si­tion have promised to give Ne­tanyahu the sup­port that he needs to ap­prove a hostage re­lease, but the hard-lin­ers’ anger could be a source of in­sta­bil­i­ty down the road.

Ten hard­line mem­bers of Is­rael’s par­lia­ment sent a let­ter to Ne­tanyahu ex­press­ing their op­po­si­tion to a deal that does not al­low Is­raeli sol­diers to main­tain a pres­ence in strate­gic parts of the Gaza Strip, which has pre­vi­ous­ly been a non-starter for Hamas.

Ne­tanyahu is hop­ing that the prospect of a Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion — which in­cludes al­lies of the West Bank set­tler move­ment — will per­suade his part­ners to re­main in the gov­ern­ment.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, who hopes to wrap up a deal be­fore leav­ing of­fice next week, spoke with Ne­tanyahu about the talks on Sun­day.

The head of Is­rael’s Mossad for­eign in­tel­li­gence agency, David Barnea, and Biden’s top Mid­dle East ad­vis­er, Brett McGurk, were both in the Qatari cap­i­tal, Do­ha. Barnea’s pres­ence meant high-lev­el Is­raeli of­fi­cials who would need to sign off on any agree­ment are once again in­volved in the talks.

Pales­tini­ans and fam­i­lies of the hostages hope for a deal

Just one brief cease­fire has been achieved dur­ing the war, and that was in the ear­li­est weeks of fight­ing.

Is­rael’s cam­paign in Gaza has killed more than 46,000 Pales­tini­ans, the ma­jor­i­ty women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to the ter­ri­to­ry’s Health Min­istry, whose count doesn’t give a break­down be­tween fight­ers and civil­ians. Hamas-led mil­i­tants killed about 1,200 peo­ple and ab­duct­ed around 250 oth­ers in the at­tack that ig­nit­ed the war.

Fam­i­lies of the rough­ly 100 hostages still held in Gaza have been press­ing Ne­tanyahu to reach a deal to bring their loved ones home.

In Gaza, Pales­tini­ans hope for a stop to Is­rael’s cam­paign, which has dev­as­tat­ed much of the ter­ri­to­ry and dri­ven around 90% of its 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple from their homes. At least 14 Pales­tini­ans, in­clud­ing a fam­i­ly of five, were killed in three sep­a­rate Is­raeli airstrikes Mon­day in north­ern Gaza Strip, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry. —CAIRO (AP)

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Sto­ry by VIC­TO­RIA EAST­WOOD, SAMY MAGDY and JOSEF FE­D­ER­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Josef Fe­d­er­man re­port­ed from Jerusalem. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Ab­by Sewell in Beirut and Melanie Lid­man in Jerusalem con­tributed to this re­port.