Mediators are currently planning for an agreement to be signed on Thursday between Israel and Hamas that will see the immediate release of remaining living hostages in exchange for a Gaza ceasefire, an Arab diplomat and a second source briefed on the ongoing negotiations in Egypt told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.

Once the ceasefire is in place, Hamas will then be able to gather the bodies of the dead hostages for their subsequent return to Israel, the sources said.

There are currently 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

The agreement the mediators are planning to finalize on Thursday will be on what stakeholders are referring to as the “first phase” of US President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the war, the sources said.

Top officials from Israel and Hamas along with counterparts from mediating countries — the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — were in Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday in order to close remaining gaps in the negotiations after technical talks were held by lower-level teams on Monday and Tuesday.

Trump said Wednesday that a deal ending the Gaza war is “very close” and that he plans to travel to the region this weekend if an agreement is reached.

“We have a team of great negotiators, and they are unfortunately great negotiators on the other side also,” Trump said during an event at the White House.

He reiterated that the Arab and Muslim world is on board with his plan. “Our final negotiation is with Hamas. And it seems to be going well.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll be leaving, probably on Sunday, maybe Saturday,” Trump added.

With an agreement on the hostage-release phase of the US plan for ending the war in Gaza appearing close, Hamas has provided information on “roughly 20 living hostages,” Israeli officials told Channel 12. The Wednesday report added that the terror group says it is still searching for some of the dead hostages — Israel has confirmed the deaths of 26 of the 48 remaining captives.

Three Israeli officials told CNN on Wednesday that Hamas might not be able to find all the dead hostages. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has known for months that this is the case, according to the officials.

One official said that seven to nine bodies might not be retrieved, while another put that figure at between 10 and 15. The assessments are based on Israeli intelligence and information that is coming out of talks in Egypt, the report said, though there is no way to know the exact figure.

The Times of Israel previously reported that the terror group has, in the past, told mediators it does not know where some of the bodies of slain hostages are located.

Under the proposed deal, Israel is to begin releasing Palestinian security prisoners once the hostage-release phase is completed.

Two hundred and fifty of the remaining 303 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails will be released, along with 1,700 Palestinians who have been detained in Gaza since October 7, 2023, including all women and children from Gaza held in that timeframe. Many of those detainees have been held by way of a controversial policy called administrative detention, without due process. For every slain hostage released by Hamas, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans that it is holding.

Channel 12 reported that the understanding currently appears to be that once Hamas hands over all of the living hostages and all the dead hostages it can locate, and makes clear it is not holding any as bargaining chips, the prisoner releases will follow.

Israel will not free Hamas Nukhba terrorists who directly participated in the October 7 massacre, the report said. But there will be some “flexibility” on the issue of the release of some heavyweight terrorists serving life terms, many of whom Israel has refused to free in past deals.

The Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that decisions regarding the identities of the Palestinian prisoners slated for release won’t be made until the final minutes before a deal is signed in order to avoid drawn-out negotiations.

Hamas is committed to securing the release of former Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti as part of the agreement with Israel to end the war, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.

Hamas’s leadership has relayed to interlocutors that “Barghouti’s fate remains absolutely central to these talks,” the source said.

Barghouti is currently serving life in prison for planning attacks during the Second Intifada that killed five civilians. He has denied the crimes he was convicted of while rejecting the Israeli court’s jurisdiction.

The 66-year-old has been described as a potential successor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as he has appeal among broad swaths of the Palestinian population, while maintaining support for a two-state solution.

Despite potential snags, the indirect talks are trending positively toward an agreement within the next day or two, a Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations told The Times of Israel earlier Wednesday.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan expressed optimism that a deal could be reached as soon as Thursday evening.

The talks are focused on the release of the remaining 48 hostages in exchange for a total of roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners along with a partial Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the source said, adding that issues pertaining to Hamas’s disarmament and the post-war management of Gaza will be finalized in subsequent rounds of negotiations.

Under the emerging deal, there will be ‘cosmetic changes” to the lines of the interim IDF withdrawal as drawn on a map released by the White House last week, which showed the military deployed in some 57 percent of the Gaza Strip, Channel 12 reported.

According to the network, Israel’s government has already begun drafting the decision proposal that will be brought to a vote.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi invited Trump to come to Egypt for a potential signing ceremony. If it takes place on Friday, it would coincide with the announcement of the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize — an award Trump has long sought and claims he deserves.

Nava Freiberg contributed to this report.