According to an Israeli official, a mid-level Israeli team will visit Cairo to evaluate Hamas’ position

A senior Israeli official stated that Israel rejected the current plan and that a team of mid-ranking Israeli officials would be visiting Cairo in the coming hours to see if Hamas can be convinced to modify its most recent ceasefire offer.

The envoys in this delegation are at the middle level. The senior officers from the intelligence organizations Mossad and Shin Bet who are spearheading the Israeli side are known as the “principals,” and if a serious deal were in the works, they would be leading the trip, the official told Reuters.

Hours after Israeli tanks seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, the visit to the Egyptian capital is scheduled to occur.

Israeli aircraft have repeatedly attacked eastern Rafah, the southern Gaza city that has served as a sanctuary for over a million Palestinians who have been forced to flee their homes due to the seven-month conflict.

Egyptian officials have ordered Israel to halt the Rafah operation immediately, according to state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV, which also stated that efforts were still being made to moderate the escalation between the two sides.

In a statement, Hamas claimed that the operation was intended to jeopardize talks for a truce.

The Israeli official, who requested anonymity, claimed that Hamas was compelled to release its most recent proposal quickly due to Israel’s evident will to take action against Rafah.

The proposal went to “unacceptable extremes,” according to the official, taking the fundamental framework of a proposal from April 27—which called for an end to hostilities and the release of some of the more than 130 Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian inmates held in Israel.

Another official, however, said that Hamas had accepted the phased ceasefire and hostage-release agreement that Israel had put up on April 27 with only small modifications that had no bearing on the proposal’s essential elements.

The new demand would prevent Israel from using its veto power to block the release of some Palestinian inmates, such as Fatah commander Marwan Barghouti, who is serving a life term for his part in organizing deadly attacks against Israelis.

The official stated, “Hamas wants them all to be eligible and for Israel to have no say in the matter.”

Additionally, it would remove limitations on the entry of items known as dual use, which can be applied to both military and civilian applications, into Gaza. “We know that Hamas intends to manufacture munitions, but they say they should be allowed in for Gaza’s rehabilitation.”

Furthermore, instead of the 33 captives that would have been freed under earlier plans, Hamas was now offering to release only 18 of them in the first phase of a truce, with the remaining hostages to be released in a later phase.

According to the official, “that means Israel will only get 18 hostages if it sticks to its refusal to call off the offensive.”