Hamas told Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Monday that the group has accepted the Gaza ceasefire proposal that had been presented to them earlier that day, sources told Middle East Eye.

This is the same proposal - barring some minor details - that Hamas had accepted on 1 June before both the Israelis and the Americans withdrew their teams from talks in Doha.

Should this ceasefire come to fruition, it would demonstrate a major compromise by the Israelis, a source told MEE. 

Israel is on the verge of a military occupation of Gaza City that would mean a complete takeover of the Strip. There are more than one million Palestinians in Gaza's key northern hub, and the decision by Israel's war cabinet has been met with condemnations from around the world, including from major allies like the UK, France, Germany and Canada. 

Israel's Kan public broadcaster said on Monday that the war cabinet is not ruling out the possibility of this deal taking hold, and that there are "positive" signs. The proposal will reportedly be studied in Israel in the coming days. 

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An Egyptian official confirmed to Reuters news agency that the deal on the table would involve a suspension of military operations for 60 days, during which time Hamas and Israel could find a pathway to a permanent end to the war. 

The terms include the release of half of the living Israeli captives held in Gaza, in exchange for an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners from Israel.

There are believed to be at least 20 Israeli captives, out of more than 50, who are still alive and being held by Hamas or another Palestinian faction. All of them are Israeli soldiers.

Israel, meanwhile, has some 12,000 Palestinians from both Gaza and the occupied West Bank in its prisons, nearly half of whom were rounded up after 7 October 2023, when Hamas led its attack on southern Israel.

Earlier in the day Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty visited Egypt's Rafah border crossing into Gaza, accompanied by Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa.

"As we speak now, there are Palestinian and Qatari delegations present on Egyptian soil working to intensify efforts to put an end to the systematic killing and starvation," Abdelatty said.

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For his part, Mustafa said the PA "will soon announce the establishment of a temporary committee to manage the affairs of the Strip under the auspices of the Palestinian government", which he described as a revival of the "State of Palestine and its government in Gaza". 

Just hours before Hamas made its announcement, US President Donald Trump said that Hamas must be "confronted and destroyed" in order for the captives to be retrieved from Gaza.

"We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be," he wrote on his social media platform, TruthSocial.

"Remember, I was the one who negotiated and got hundreds of hostages freed and released into Israel (and America!). I was the one who ended 6 wars, in just 6 months. I was the one who OBLITERATED Iran's Nuclear facilities. Play to WIN, or don't play at all! Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Trump said.

While the US president has been credited with getting the January ceasefire over the finish line by applying pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the day before his inauguration, the deal was later revealed by the Qataris to be the very same one proposed in December 2023 and accepted by the Biden administration and Hamas, but repeatedly turned down by Israel. 

More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in what is now widely considered a genocide in Gaza. Half of the casualties are women and children.

More than 200 of the dead were starved to death because of Israel's total siege on the enclave, which began in March.