Israel reportedly told mediating countries Monday that it was willing to release the 602 prisoners who were meant to go free two days earlier if Hamas immediately returned the bodies of four hostages it was supposed to release later in the week, the Ynet news site reported, citing an Israeli official.

Israel demanded that Hamas return the dead captives without performing a ceremony with the coffins, as it did last week with the bodies of the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz, all of whom Israel has determined were murdered in captivity.

A fragile, complex ceasefire agreement between the two sides involves Hamas releasing batches of hostages, alive and dead, in return for Israel freeing hundreds of security prisoners it has incarcerated, many of whom are serving life sentences for terror offenses.

However, the process, which was approaching the end of the first of three phases, hit a snag after Israel said early Sunday that it would not release the 602 security prisoners if the Palestinian terror group did not guarantee the release of further hostages, and without making propaganda spectacles out of it as has so far been the case.

The prisoners had been slated to be let go as part of a deal for the release of six hostages who were freed by Hamas earlier Saturday. But with Israelis fuming over the handling of the transfer of the bodies of mother Shiri Bibas and her two small children Ariel and Kfir who were murdered in captivity, and new anger sparked by a propaganda video showing hostages being brought to watch a ceremony where others were being freed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would demand an end to the gauche fanfare before resuming freeing prisoners.

A Hamas official was cited by Ynet as saying the group would only hand over the four dead hostages it was still due to return under the first phase of the truce deal if Israel first set free the security prisoners.

On Sunday, Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Mardawi said the terror group would hold off on negotiations with Israel through mediators until Jerusalem agreed to release the inmates.

Following unconfirmed reports Monday alleging headway in negotiations, Mardawi doubled down, stressing that Hamas’s stance had not changed, and multiple Hebrew media outlets cited unnamed Israeli sources denying progress had been made toward the imminent release of hostage’s bodies.

The three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, when Hamas-led invading terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

The deal requires Hamas to gradually release all its hostages, Israel to release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners in return, and both sides to halt fighting in the Strip, as the sides negotiate for a “sustainable calm” and the IDF withdraws gradually from the enclave. With the first phase of the deal set to end this coming Saturday, negotiations are ongoing for the second phase,

The Israeli official who spoke to Ynet Monday said that no matter what, Israel will continue to seek its war goals — which officially include the elimination of Hamas as a military or governing body.

There are three possible scenarios, the source said.

One is for negotiations to be held on the second phase in which Israel will demand the return of all hostages, Hamas disarming, Gaza being demilitarized, and the exile of Hamas leaders and those of the allied terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Under those terms the war will be ended, the source said.

If Hamas doesn’t agree, then Israel will achieve those goals through military means, he said.

A last option is to continue the framework of the first phase, as is allowed for in the terms of the ceasefire. In that case, the ceasefire will continue as long as hostages are being released in batches, including living hostages. Israel would then prioritize the release of four hostages who are all fathers, the source said, and other living hostages who are believed to be wounded or ill, based on new information received from those recently released. At the same time, talks will be held on Israel releasing more security prisoners and increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza.

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who was deeply involved in mediations for the ceasefire even before US President Donald Trump’s administration took office in January, is due to arrive in the region on Wednesday.

Witkoff said Sunday that he would look to prolong the first phase of the deal.

“We have to get an extension of phase one, and so I’ll be going into the region this week, probably Wednesday, to negotiate that,” Witkoff told CNN, later telling CBS that his trip would include stops in Qatar, Egypt, Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

It was the first time that the Trump administration publicly declared its goal of extending phase one, amid mounting speculation that this was Israel’s preference, due to the aversion of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to even hold negotiations on the terms of phase two — which includes a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — let alone implement them.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 63 hostages, including 62 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of four slain Israeli captives — Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz — during a ceasefire that began in January.

The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas, and is counted among the 63 hostages.