Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a request from the negotiating team to expand its powers to enable it to reach a prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas, according to Hebrew media on Tuesday evening.

For months, the Israeli negotiating team has been complaining, according to media reports and opposition leaders, about the lack of powers granted to it by Netanyahu, which prevents reaching an agreement through indirect negotiations with Hamas.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said on its website that Netanyahu met earlier this week with the negotiating team.

She continued: Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yisrael Katz rejected "the proposals of the negotiating team leaders regarding a deal to return the kidnapped (Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip), as they sought to expand the scope of the powers to conduct the negotiations and bypass the issue of ending the war."

Netanyahu insists on continuing to occupy the Netzarim Corridor in the middle of the Gaza Strip, the Philadelphi Corridor, and the Rafah Crossing (south), and refuses to stop the war as part of any prisoner exchange deal, while Hamas insists on ending the war and the complete withdrawal of the Israeli army.

During the meeting, Mossad chief David Barnea and Major General Nitzan Alon, the army's representative on the negotiating team, "requested more room for negotiations and stressed that without additional room for maneuver in the terms, it would not be possible to move forward," according to the newspaper.

The newspaper quoted unnamed informed sources as saying that Netanyahu, with the support of Katz, rejected the request.

"Unfortunately, there are no negotiations and everything is collapsing. We are talking to ourselves. There is no progress," the sources added.

In response to a request for comment from the newspaper, Netanyahu's office called the story a "false and biased leak," and claimed that it "aims to subject Israel to Hamas's dictates."

Tel Aviv is holding no less than 9,500 Palestinians in its prisons, and estimates that there are 101 Israeli prisoners in Gaza, while Hamas announced the killing of dozens of them in random Israeli raids.

The Israeli opposition accuses Netanyahu of refusing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza for fear of collapsing his government coalition, in light of extremist ministers threatening to withdraw from it.