The Hamas terror group on Sunday presented mediators with its own proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Israel after rejecting one drafted by mediators last week in Cairo, and is now demanding that Israel observe a six-week ceasefire before any of the hostages are released.

The proposal put forward by the terror group includes a complete cessation of fighting in the Gaza Strip and the release of the hostages to be implemented in three six-week stages, Haaretz reported Sunday evening.

The first phase of the deal would require the Israel Defense Forces to end the fighting, withdraw from all urban centers in the Strip and allow displaced Palestinians to return unimpeded to northern Gaza.

Unlike in previous proposals, all of which have been rejected by Hamas, none of the 129 hostages held by Gaza terror groups since the October 7 massacre in southern Israel would be released during the first phase of the deal. Instead, Hamas reportedly claimed it would need to use that time to locate the hostages and ascertain what condition they are in.

After the initial 42-day period is over, Hamas would be prepared to begin releasing the elderly and sick hostages, as well as civilian women and female soldiers, albeit for a steep price. According to the report, the terror group would require Israel to release 30 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for each of the civilian hostages in the second phase of the deal — a sharp increase from the three prisoners it demanded for each civilian hostage during a weeklong truce in November.

With regard to the female soldiers, Israel would reportedly be required to release 50 Palestinian prisoners per captive soldier, of whom 30 would be prisoners serving life sentences.

In the third and final stage of Hamas’s proposed deal, the rehabilitation of the war-torn Gaza Strip would begin, and all captive male soldiers and men of military age would be released, as well as the bodies of those killed in captivity or on October 7.

The report did not include details on how many Palestinian prisoners Israel would need to release for each of the hostages in the final phase of the deal.

Many of the demands laid out by Hamas in its proposal have previously been rejected by Israel as nonstarters, including a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the entire Gaza Strip.

The roadmap presented by Hamas was drawn up after it rejected the recent offer floated in Cairo by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

That offer had been widely reported to include a temporary ceasefire of at least several weeks in return for the release of dozens of hostages. Israel would also set free hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners held in its jails alongside enabling a boost in aid to Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis has ballooned amid the fighting.

Hamas announced on Saturday evening that it had submitted its response and was sticking to its original demands for a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the entirety of Gaza, the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza and other areas, a surge in humanitarian aid and the start of the Strip’s reconstruction.

Nonetheless, it claimed that it was still prepared to reach an agreement, and its statement didn’t explicitly reject the proposal, although in Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Mossad intelligence agency said the response amounted to a rejection.

The rejection of the deal drawn up in Cairo, the PMO said on Sunday, proved that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar “is not interested in a humanitarian deal and in the return of the hostages, and continues to take advantage of tensions with Iran to try to unite the theaters and to achieve a general escalation in the region.”

Israel will continue to work to achieve its goals, the statement said, and will “turn over every stone to bring back the 133 hostages from Gaza as soon as possible.”

Of the 253 people abducted in the October 7 Hamas onslaught, in which terrorists slaughtered some 1,200 people, 129 are still in captivity, including 34 who have been confirmed by the IDF to no longer be alive.

Israel also wants the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed and captured in 2014, as well as the return of two Israeli citizens who entered Gaza of their own accord around that time.

While Israel has not publicly commented on Hamas’s latest proposal, which the terror group said it had presented to mediators, an official told the Wall Street Journal last week that it would be open to using a Hamas proposal as the basis for “serious negotiations” so long as it was determined to advance efforts.