Three sources familiar with the meeting say that the Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and Abbas Kamel, the Egyptian director of intelligence, met on Wednesday with Hamas negotiators to try and break the deadlock of the talks to release hostages and to reach a ceasefire and end to the conflict in Gaza.

Sources said that the meeting in Doha aimed to convince Hamas of the need to lower its demands regarding the release Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails.

White House officials have been re-evaluating their strategy for a Gaza agreement. President Biden and his top advisers are deciding whether it is worth presenting a fresh proposal, as Hamas has taken a more aggressive stance in the negotiations.

Senior Israeli officials said that the talks have reached a deadlock and that he does not believe the meeting in Doha will change this.

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Driving the news: The U.S.A., Egypt, and Qatar continue to work on an updated and new bridge proposal that they will present to Israel and Hamas.

U.S. officials have said that the White House is very sceptical about the chances of a deal being reached in the near future due to Hamas’s new demands.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan said to Al-Jazeera that Hamas had not added any new demands, and that the U.S. must focus on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu also made new demands including the deployment Israel Defense Forces on the Egypt-Gaza Border.

Officials from the United States claim that they could convince Netanyahu to soften his demands significantly if Hamas dropped theirs.

Bill Burns, the CIA Director and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both said that the U.S. may present a new plan in the next few days. However, other U.S. officials claim this is not imminent.

Hamas has confirmed that the meeting took place in a Wednesday statement. It said that its negotiation team had stressed to Qatari and Egyptian leaders the fact that Hamas was “positively looking forward” to a ceasefire that would include Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas said it has no new demands, and opposes new demands of any kind.

The statement read: “We have given our response to the mediators and are interested in further mediation for us to reach an understanding.”

Sources with knowledge of the matter said that the Qatari and Egyptian mediators felt, after the Hamas meeting, it may be possible to make a new U.S. – Qatari – Egyptian bridging offer to the parties.

Officials in the United States said that Biden’s advisors have spoken to senior officials from Qatar and Egypt several times in the past week and informed them of the Hamas demand regarding the number prisoners it wants released.

Officials from Israel and the United States say Hamas wants to release 100 more prisoners who are serving life sentences on top of 150 already released.

Officials added that the U.S. requested that Egypt and Qatar increase pressure on Hamas in order to remove its new demands.

What they are saying: White House spokesperson John Kirby stated on Tuesday that Egypt, the U.S. and Qatar were still working to come up with a proposal on which both Israel and Hamas could agree.

Kirby stated that “it is unclear to us whether we’ll be able get there, and whether Hamas can come to the table with sincerity to sign something.”