The pace of talks aimed at securing a ceasefire-for-hostages agreement in Gaza appeared to be accelerating, amid claims on both sides that a deal may be within reach, perhaps within days

Senior Israeli officials, Hamas sources, and US and Arab officials have all expressed optimism that a deal may be close for a phased release of the surviving hostages in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

About 60 living hostages, mainly Israeli and dual nationals, are believed to be still held in Gaza as well as the bodies of 35 others, out of more than 240 who were abducted to Gaza during Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

On Tuesday an Israeli negotiating team travelled to Qatar while a report from Reuters – denied by his office and Egypt – said that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was planning to travel to Cairo for talks.

Instead, Netanyahu’s office said he had toured a buffer zone inside Syria that was recently seized by Israeli forces after the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Two Egyptian security sources added, however, 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.

Hamas said in a statement that 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.

Reinforcing the sense of optimism the White House spokesperson John Kirby said in an interview with Fox News: “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.”

He added, however: “We’ve been in this position before where we weren’t able to get it over the finish line.”

A report in the Washington Post on Tuesday suggested that Hamas had softened its demands for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip as a precondition of a deal.

Both sides have expressed optimism in recent days that a deal may be close for a phased release of the surviving hostages in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The incoming US president, Donald Trump, has said he wants to see the hostages released or “all hell’s going to break out” and has sent a hostage envoy to Israel for meetings with senior politicians, including Netanyahu, whom Trump spoke to over the weekend.

On Monday, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, briefed lawmakers that Israel and Hamas were “the closest we’ve been to a hostage deal since the last deal”, which took place in November 2023 and resulted in the release of more than 100 hostages.

He added that he expected the deal to get widespread support. “There will be a sweeping majority in the security cabinet and the cabinet for the emerging hostage deal.”

Katz has said Israel would maintain security control over Gaza after a ceasefire.

“After we defeat Hamas’s military and governing power in Gaza, Israel will maintain security control over Gaza with full freedom of action,” he said. “We will not allow a return to the reality before October 7.”

Although details of an emerging deal are being negotiated under tight secrecy, it is understood that it would involve a phased ceasefire that would see an initial cessation of hostilities for 60 days in exchange for the release of surviving hostages, including women, elderly people and those suffering illness.

Israel’s diaspora affairs minister, Amichai Chikli, told Army Radio “there’s a hierarchy, with the humanitarian cases in the first stage, and then the rest of the hostages”.

Reports in Arab media have said Hamas and other Palestinian militia appear to be open to a slower, phased end to the fighting with talks focused on the number of hostages to be released in any first phase.

Sticking points that torpedoed previous rounds of talks, including the presence of Israel troops in the so-called Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors inside Gaza, appear to have been sidelined for now, although a continuing issue is understood to be the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to return to their homes in the strip’s north.

In the past week, Trump has ramped up his direct engagement on the issue, despite not being sworn in as president until 20 January, sending his incoming special envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, who met Netanyahu on Monday evening.

Commenting on his telephone conversation with Netanyahu on Saturday, Trump said: “We had a very good talk. I’ll be very available on 20 January and we’ll see. As you know, I gave warning that if these hostages aren’t back home by that date, all hell’s going to break out.”

Despite the encouraging noises coming from both sides, negotiations have repeatedly reached an impasse before amid accusations of bad faith.

However, the ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria have created a new dynamic with a decimated Hamas isolated from any meaningful support in the rest of the region.

Hamas has also suffered major blows, such as the death in October of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, and the earlier killing of the leader of its armed wing, Mohammed Deif.

Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 14 Palestinians on Tuesday, at least 10 of them in one house in Gaza City, medics said, as tanks pushed deeper towards the western area of Rafah in the south.