MSNBC: Hamas Agrees to a Ceasefire Proposal from Egypt and Qatar

EXCERPT:

SANCHEZ: "A proposal that’s now been on the table for more than a week, a proposal that the U.S. has been urging Hamas to take. Now, our understanding of the most recent iteration of this proposal is that Hamas would agree to the release of 33 hostages from the so-called humanitarian category, so that is women, it is children, it is the elderly, people with serious medical conditions. And in return, Israel would agree to a 40-day cease-fire and the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Now we should stress, Chris, at this point, all we have is this statement from the political wing of Hamas. We do not have the detail of what exactly it is that they have agreed to, and there has been pretty frenetic diplomacy over the weekend involving CIA Director Bill Burns, who has been criss-crossing the Middle East, starting in Egypt, flying to Qatar, coming here to Israel. So it is possible that the framework of that deal has changed over the weekend. It is also worth saying that these deals are often structured in terms of first an agreement on a broad framework and then hammering out of the details. As you know, Chris, the devil is often in the detail, but there is positive indication, for the first time since that last cease-fire deal which lasted only a week, collapsed on December 1st last year, this is the first time that we have heard from Hamas that they are prepared to accept a cease-fire proposal.”