By Erin Banco and Nidal al-Mughrabi
WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) -An agreement to halt the 14-month-old war in Gaza and free hostages held in the Palestinian enclave could be signed in the coming days with talks in Cairo making progress, sources briefed on the meeting said on Tuesday.
The U.S. administration, joined by mediators from Egypt and Qatar, has made intensive efforts in recent days to advance the talks before President Joe Biden leaves office next month.
“We believe – and the Israelis have said this – that we’re getting closer, and no doubt about it, we believe that, but we also are cautious in our optimism,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said in an interview with Fox News.
“We’ve been in this position before where we weren’t able to get it over the finish line.”
The sources said a ceasefire deal could be days away that would stop the fighting and return hostages held by the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
CIA Director William Burns, a key U.S. negotiator, was due in Doha on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on bridging remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, other knowledgeable sources told Reuters.
The CIA declined to comment.
Hamas said in a statement a deal was possible if Israel stopped setting new conditions. A Palestinian official close to the mediation efforts said negotiations were serious, with discussions under way about every word.
Sources briefed on the meeting said Netanyahu was on his way to Cairo, but a statement from Netanyahu’s office said he had a meeting on Tuesday with senior military and security officials on Mount Hermon, a strategic plateau just inside Syria.
Separately, his spokesperson messaged Israeli correspondents to say: “The prime minister is not in Cairo.”
Two Egyptian security sources said that Netanyahu was not in Cairo “at this moment” but that a meeting was under way to work through the remaining points, chief among them a Hamas demand for guarantees that any immediate deal would lead to a comprehensive agreement later.
The Egyptian sources said they were making progress and felt that Tuesday night could be decisive in setting the next steps.
Netanyahu had been excused on Tuesday from giving previously scheduled testimony at his corruption trial. He met in Israel on Monday with Adam Boehler, designated by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to be his special envoy for hostage affairs.
At a press conference in Florida on Monday, Trump reiterated his threat that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release its hostages by Jan. 20, the day he takes office.
Later, Trump said that if no ceasefire deal is reached by the time he takes office, “It’s not going to be pleasant.” He did not elaborate.
U.S. and Israeli officials have expressed growing optimism that negotiations brokered by Egypt and Qatar could produce a deal by the end of the month but have also cautioned that the talks could fall through.
Israeli negotiators were in Doha on Monday looking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas on a deal Biden outlined in May.
There have been repeated rounds of talks over the past year, all of which have ended in failure, with Israel insisting on retaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refusing to release hostages until the troops pulled out.
The war in Gaza, triggered by a Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw more than 250 abducted as hostages, has sent shockwaves across the Middle East and left Israel isolated internationally.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.
Israeli airstrikes killed extended families in homes in two parts of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medics said.
At least 10 people were confirmed killed in an airstrike on a house in Gaza City that destroyed the building, while further north in the town of Beit Lahiya at least 15 people were believed to be dead or missing under the rubble of a house hit around dawn.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Mills, Jonathan Landay, Doina Chiacu, Maayan Lubell, Humeyra Pamuk, Emily Rose, Ahmed Mohamed Hassan; Writing by James Mackenzie and Howard Goller; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Lisa Shumaker)
