INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza were gathering momentum on Friday after Hamas made a revised proposal on the terms
of a deal and Israel said it would resume stalled negotiations.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told United States President Joe
Biden on Thursday he would send a delegation to resume negotiations, and an Israeli official said his country&s team would be led by the
head of the Mossad intelligence agency, Reuters reported.A source in Israel&s negotiating team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
there was a real chance of achieving agreement after Hamas made its revised proposal on the terms of a deal, received by Israel on
Wednesday.The proposal put forward by Hamas includes a very significant breakthrough,& the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity
and giving no details.The Israeli response to the Hamas proposal, submitted via mediators, was in marked contrast to past instances during
the nearly nine-month-old war in Gaza, when Israel said conditions attached by the militant Islamist group were not acceptable.A Palestinian
official close to the internationally mediated peace efforts told Reuters the new Hamas proposal could lead to a framework agreement if it
is embraced by Israel.He said Hamas was no longer demanding as a pre-condition an Israeli commitment to permanently cease fire before the
signing of an agreement, and would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout a first six-week phase.Should the sides need more time to
seal an agreement on a permanent ceasefire, the two sides should agree there would be no return to the fighting until they do that,& said
the official, who asked not to be named.Hamas has previously said any deal must end the war and bring a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza
and sought the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza.Israel has previously said it
will accept only temporary pauses in the fighting until Hamas, which governs the small, densely populated Gaza Strip, is eradicated.Egyptian
sources acknowledged there had been a shift but suggested that the core issue of commitment to a permanent ceasefire was still
outstanding.In the latest fighting in Gaza, residents said Israeli tanks had pushed shortly before dawn into the Al-Nasser neighbourhood in
the northern part of Rafah, near the border with Egypt.Israel said its operations in Rafah were aimed at dismantling the last battalions of
Hamas& armed wing.An Israeli air strike on a house killed five Palestinians, including three children, in Jabalia refugee camp in northern
Gaza, Gaza medics said.Five Palestinians were also killed in an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, the
Palestinian health ministry said.The post Gaza ceasefire hopes rise as Israel says it will resume stalled negotiations first appeared on
