Hamas is studying in "a positive spirit" a proposal for reaching a hostage and ceasefire deal with Israel, the Palestinian militant group said on Thursday.
The remark was made by Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in a phone call with the head of the Egyptian intelligence service Abbas Kamel.
The militant group said in a statement it would send a team to Egypt "at the earliest possible time" for further talks on the proposed deal.
The Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yehya al-Sinwar, still has three demands in the current negotiation offer for a hostage deal, according to a media report.
He continues to demand a guaranteed end to the war, a source close to the Hamas leader told the Israeli television station Channel 12 on Thursday evening. Israel has so far denied this.
Al-Sinwar reportedly wants a written commitment for an "unconditional end to the fighting."
According to the broadcaster, al-Sinwar is also demanding that Israel does not prevent the return to the West Bank of Palestinian prisoners who are to be released in return for hostages kidnapped from Israel.
Egyptian state-affiliated broadcaster al-Qahera News meanwhile quoted someone it described as a high-level Egyptian source as saying that a Hamas team would arrive in Cairo in the next two days to resume the ceasefire negotiations.
As part of the latest mediation efforts, Hamas, which abducted some 250 people from Israel on October 7, was presented with a proposal for a ceasefire in return for the release of hostages. A response is still pending.
Some of the hostages were released in an exchange in November, but it is unclear how many of those remaining in captivity are still alive.
Months of mediation by Egypt, Qatar and the United States between Israel and Hamas have yet to result in a breakthrough. A diplomatic push to clinch a deal has picked momentum over the past days, however.
The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented terrorist massacre of more than 1,200 people in Israel, killed by militants from Hamas and other groups on October 7.
Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground offensive. In view of the high number of civilian casualties and the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip, Israel has come under international criticism.
According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, 34,596 people have been killed and more than 77,800 others injured in Gaza since the war started. Their figures, which do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, cannot be independently verified.
On Thursday, a top official with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said Israel's attacks have caused the worst destruction in a region since World War II.
"We haven't seen anything like this since 1945 - since the Second World War. That intensity in such a short time, and the massive scale of destruction," said UNDP regional director Abdallah Al Dardari.
According to a new assessment by the UN agency, the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip could take at least until 2040. For instance, 370,000 housing units had been damaged in Gaza by mid-April, 79,000 of which were completely destroyed.
UNDP bases its estimate on a calculation model that takes into account the speed at which destroyed buildings in the coastal strip have been rebuilt to date. Even if this rate were increased five-fold, it would still take 16 years to rebuild all of the completely destroyed housing units.
Meanwhile the US condemned attacks on aid shipments as unacceptable on Thursday.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Israeli settlers had vandalized Gaza aid trucks that had left from Jordan.
"I will tell you we were glad to hear that Israel yesterday arrested three of the people involved in the attacks on this convoy. That is the appropriate step," he told reporters.
"That's the step that they ought to take whenever there are attacks on aid convoys, and that furthermore they ought to prevent these attacks from happening in the first place."
Miller said there were also reports that Hamas had diverted aid once it had arrived in Gaza. It had since been recovered, he added.
"If there is one thing that Hamas could do to jeopardize the shipment of aid, it would be diverting it for their own use rather than allowing it to go to the innocent civilians that need it, so they certainly should refrain from doing that in the future."
Meanwhile Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant discussed "operational developments" in northern and southern Israel in a phone call with his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, a Gallant spokeswoman said. They also discussed efforts to release hostages held by Hamas.
Israel has announced that it will go ahead with a controversial ground operation in the city of Rafah in the south of the coastal strip if there is no agreement soon on a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.