Qatari and US mediators also arrived in the Egyptian capital yesterday, according to the state-linked AI Qahera News.
Talks involving Israeli negotiators took place in the Qatari city of Doha on Saturday and Hamas was expected to respond as time runs out before the unofficial deadline of 10 or 11 March, when Ramadan starts. The month of fasting is often accompanied by an uptick in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A Hamas official said that if Israel were to meet its demands - which include a complete military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and stepped-up humanitarian aid - this would "pave the way for an agreement within the next 24-48 hours".
Another unnamed Palestinian official told Reuters, however, that a ceasefire deal was still not imminent, saying: "We're not there yet." A US official said on Saturday that Israel had "more or less accepted" a deal presented by mediators.
However, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has so far refused to pull troops out of Gaza before Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are freed. Israel had yet to confirm it had accepted the truce plan or whether it would attend the talks.
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