Biden administration officials have discussed the possibility of negotiating a unilateral agreement with Hamas to secure the release of five Americans detained in Gaza if current ceasefire talks involving Israel fail, according to current and two former senior US officials, NBC reported. "American.

The officials said that these negotiations will not include Israel and will be conducted through Qatari interlocutors, as is usual in current talks.

The sources reported that the administration of US President Joe Biden believes that Hamas was holding five Americans during the attack on October 7, namely Aidan Alexander, Sagi Dekel-Chen, Hirsch Goldberg-Boulin, Omar Neutra, and Keith Siegel.

US officials also hope to recover the bodies of three additional US citizens believed to have been killed that day, whose bodies were subsequently transported to Gaza.

Officials did not know what the United States might offer Hamas in exchange for the release of the American hostages.

But they made clear that Hamas may have an incentive to make a unilateral deal with the United States; Because this step is likely to further strain relations between Washington and Tel Aviv, and put additional internal political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

One former official told NBC that internal discussions also took place in the context of whether the possibility of the United States concluding a unilateral deal with Hamas might pressure Netanyahu to agree to a version of the current ceasefire proposal.