Hamas has agreed to a ceasefire-hostage deal with Israel, according to a senior official.

Egyptian and Qatari mediators have been holding talks with Hamas in their latest effort to broker a ceasefire with Israel in Gaza.

The Hamas official did not provide further details of the agreement or what had been accepted.

Hamas has responded positively to such deals in the past, while proposing amendments which have proved unacceptable to Israel.

Sky’s International Correspondent Diana Magnay in Jerusalem said the agreement appears to be similar to the plan put forward by Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, for a 60-day ceasefire deal.

“What we understand from Hamas, in relation to this deal, is that it would be within the 60-day ceasefire framework, but it would be a release of prisoners and detainees in two parts.

“What we understand from Arab channels is that Hamas agreed to it without major alterations,” she said.

An Egyptian official source told Reuters that, during the ceasefire, there would be an exchange of Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of half of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

There has been no word from Israel about the proposed ceasefire.

Diana Magnay said it is clear that mediators from Egypt and Qatar, potentially along with Hamas, felt under pressure because of Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to push further into Gaza City, “and that’s why you’ve had mediators over the weekend in Cairo trying to get some kind of plan on the table.”

“So the big question is, will Benjamin Netanyahu agree to this? We shall have to see whether it is his intention at any point to agree to a ceasefire or whether this is just too late now and he will use the opportunity to push on in Gaza,” she added.

Earlier on Monday, US President Donald Trump appeared to cast doubt on peace talks.

“We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be,” he posted on his Truth Social site.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said mediators had been “exerting extensive efforts” to revive a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire, during which hostages would be released and the sides would negotiate a lasting cessation of violence.

Health authorities in Gaza said the Palestinian death toll from 22 months of war has passed 62,000.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the latest version.

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly demands that he be given control of the whole of the Donbas as part – and only part – of his price for any peace deal with Ukraine.

The area referred to as “the Donbas” consists of two regions.

Russian forces currently occupy almost all of one of them – Luhansk – and about 70% of the other – Donetsk.

The Donbas is historically an important industrial area of Ukraine, where its coal mines and heavy industries are located, as well as many of its old arms manufacturing plants from the days when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.

The 30% of Donetsk that Ukrainian forces still hold, and would be required to give up under Mr Putin‘s demands, are very important to it for a number of reasons.

Follow latest: Ukraine war live updates

Politically, it is not lost on all Ukrainians that Russia‘s 2014 takeover of parts of the Donbas (about 30% of the territory by the end of that year) began in the city of Sloviansk in the northern part of the unconquered Donbas.

The Ukrainians liberated that city from Russian-backed forces and have held onto it since, and paid a high price in lives and money to keep it free.

The same applies to the other cities and villages still under Kyiv’s control in Donetsk. It would be a bitter blow to Ukraine, and possibly even precipitate the removal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as president – to give up to Russia territory that Ukraine has fought so hard to retain for the last 11 years.

But this area also has an immediate strategic importance for Kyiv.

The four significant cities in this area form a 50 to 60km “belt” of strong fortifications.

Even the Russian military refer to Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostyantynivka as the “fortress cities” and all the villages and settlements between them are well-defended, making best use of the topographical features on which they are situated.

Read more:
Mapping the land Ukraine could be told to give up
Talks will be no repeat of Oval Office meltdown – here’s why

If Ukrainian forces had to give up these strong positions they would not be able to withdraw westwards to other defensive positions anything like as strong.

In short, they would be ceding their best defensive positions to Russian forces who could then use them as a springboard for further attacks westwards towards the Dnieper River, which the Ukrainians would struggle to defend so easily.

The fact that Russian forces have been geographically close to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk for so long without being able to take them tells its own story of the effectiveness of the “fortress cities” to hold out against Russian attacks.

Not least, there would be some advantage to Russia in gaining access to mineral fields across that part of the Donbas which incudes workable, large deposits of lithium and titanium non-ferrous metals, and also some large rare earth deposits running in a north-south geological strip along the border between Donetsk and the neighbouring region of Dnipropetrovsk.

Doubts over the value of Putin ‘security guarantees’

Some US officials have spoken about the possibility of obtaining credible security guarantees from Russia in the event that Ukraine agrees to Moscow’s terms.

It is fair to say that there is near-unanimous opinion, both among the public in Ukraine and (with only a couple of notable but minor exceptions) among political leaders in Europe, that no guarantees Mr Putin might offer would be worth anything.

His record in European security matters since he took power in Moscow in 1999 is of continual bad faith, deception, and treaty-breaking.

Russia guaranteed Ukrainian security in the Budapest Agreement of 1994 and then went on to conclude a Friendship Treaty with Ukraine in 1997 – but broke both of them by its first two invasions of Ukraine in 2014.

The Minsk Agreement and then a later “Minsk II”, followed that invasion to try to stabilise the situation.

But both of those agreements were broken very quickly by Russia.

Moscow claims these breaches were the fault of Kyiv, but the historical record gives that claim no credence.

On the eve of Russia’s full scale invasion on Ukraine in January/February 2022 Putin personally and repeatedly stressed to all the European leaders who contacted him that Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine – until the day came when it did.

Follow the World

Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday

Tap to follow

The fact is, there is simply no documentary or confirmed evidence that Mr Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine are restricted to the Donbas region.

But there is abundant documentary and confirmed public evidence to the contrary – that under Mr Putin’s leadership, Russia intends to conquer all of Ukraine and reabsorb it into the Russian federation.

Any “guarantees” that Mr Putin might offer along the way to this ultimate objective ought to be regarded as merely tactical and short-term.

Since he has honoured literally none of his previous agreements in relation to any aspect of European security, his record suggests he will break any new security guarantees as soon as he sees an advantage in doing so.

Truly, this is a moment as important as it is unusual. History does not provide us a guide here.

Never before have we seen so many world leaders gather at such short notice for a meeting like this at the White House, and with a president as consequential as he is unpredictable.

The speed with which it has been organised is remarkable. A diplomatic source has framed the hasty gathering as “organic”; the obvious next step after the Alaska summit, the source said.

The Europeans were not in the room for that. Today, they will dominate the room.

Is there a risk Donald Trump will feel encircled? I don’t think so. More likely, he will enjoy the moment, seeing himself as the great convener. And on that, he’d be right.

Whether his diplomatic process has been cack-handed or smart – and the debate there will rage on – there is no question he has created this moment of dialogue.

It was the unfolding, or unravelling, of another White House moment, back in February, which gives some key context for the day ahead.

That Trump-Zelenskyy Oval Office meltdown was a reality check for European leaders.

We all watched Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, slam the Ukrainian leader. It was excruciating but it was also instructive because, beyond the shouting, positions and attitudes were made clear.

That February meeting provided everyone with a crystallising sense of precisely who they were dealing with.

Since then, Europe and its key leaders have moulded and shifted their positions. Collectively they have transformed their own defence spending – recognising the necessity to stand on their own. And individually they have sought, urgently, to forge their own relationships with the US president.

Watch Sky News for continuous coverage from 5pm

Each of the leaders here today has worked hard (cringingly so, some might say) to get on the right side of Trump.

Whether it be Starmer and his state visit, Stubb and his golfing skills, Meloni and her Trump-aligned politics, or Rutte and his “daddy” comments, they have all appealed in different ways to Trump. They have done so precisely for moments like today.

In the hours ahead, we can expect Trump and Zelenskyy to meet with their respective delegations. We will probably see them together in the Oval Office. Brace for no repeat of February; Zelensky knows he played that badly.

Analysis and explainers:
How a chaotic 24 hours unfolded ahead of talks
Why Zelenskyy is taking a posse of leaders for talks

A repeat is unlikely not least because, in a typically Trumpian way, the American president appears to be agreeing now to the very thing he chastised Zelenskyy for requesting back in February – security guarantees before the war stops.

There will be plenty to look out for in the day ahead.

With Trump, the trivial matters as much as the detail, and very often the trivial can impact the detail. So will Zelenskyy wear a suit and tie, or at least a jacket? Remember the furore over his decision to stick to his war-time combat gear in February.

After that bilateral meeting, the wider meeting is expected. The central aim of this from a European perspective will be to understand what Trump is prepared to do in terms of guaranteeing Ukrainian security, and crucially what he and Putin discussed and agreed.

Is Putin really willing to accept some sort of American-European security pact for Ukraine? That sounds like NATO without the membership, so would that really fly with the Russian president?

Beyond that – what precisely did Trump and Putin discuss in terms of territorial swaps (more accurately described as control swaps because Ukraine would be negotiating away its own land)?

There is a concern that intentional ambiguity might allow for a peace deal. The different sides will interpret the terms differently. That could be fine short-term, providing Trump with a quick fix, but longer term it could be unsustainable and dangerous.

So above all, the European leaders’ tone to Trump will be one of flattery framed by a gentle warning.

They’ll tell him that he created this moment for peace; that it is his peace and that they want to work with him to keep it (and thus cement his legacy).

But to do that, they will tell him, they need his continued commitment to them; to Europe, not capitulation to Russia.