Israel boycotted Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo on Sunday after Hamas rejected Israel’s request for a full list of hostages still alive, an Israeli newspaper reported, according to Reuters.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Sunday for crucial talks on a ceasefire in Gaza, the latest hurdle to an agreement to end hostilities for six weeks, Reuters reported, according to News.ro. But until the very evening there was no sign of the Israelites.

“There is no Israeli delegation in Cairo,” Ynet, the online version of the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, reported, citing unidentified Israeli officials. “Hamas refuses to give clear answers, so there is no reason to send an Israeli delegation.”

In Washington, it was said that the ceasefire agreement is already “on the table”, it was approved by Israel and is only waiting for the signature of the militants.

After the arrival of the Hamas delegation, a Palestinian official told Reuters that the deal “has not yet been concluded.” There was no official confirmation from the Israeli side even of the presence of its delegation.

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A source familiar with the talks said Israel may stay away from Cairo unless Hamas first presents a full list of hostages still alive, a demand that a Palestinian source said Hamas has so far rejected as premature.

However, one US official said: “The path to a ceasefire at this moment, literally at this hour, is simple. And there is a deal on the table. There is a framework agreement.”

The deal will bring the first extended truce in a war that has raged for five months, with only a week-long break in November.

Dozens of hostages held by militants will be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Aid to besieged Gaza will be boosted to save the lives of Palestinians on the brink of starvation. The fighting will stop in time to prevent a planned massive Israeli assault on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are surrounded by the enclave’s border fence. Israeli troops will withdraw from certain areas and allow Gaza residents to return to the homes abandoned at the beginning of the war.

But the deal would not meet Hamas’s main demand to end the war permanently, and would leave the fate of more than half of the more than 100 remaining hostages unresolved, including Israeli men of fighting age who are not covered by the deal to free women, children, the elderly and the wounded.

Egyptian mediators suggested that these issues can be postponed for now, assuring that they will be resolved at the next stages. A Hamas source told Reuters the militants were still waiting for a “general agreement”.

US President Joe Biden recently said a deal could be reached as early as Monday, although Washington has since backed away from such a firm timetable. The goal is for the deal to be implemented in time to end hostilities during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins a week later.