WASHINGTON — Negotiations on a ceasefire and hostages-for-prisoners deal in Israel-Hamas war appear to be in their closing stages as US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are set to discuss remaining gaps, a senior US official said on Thursday.

The official said the remaining obstacles were bridgeable and and agreement was close. The deal calls for an initial six-week ceasefire that would take place alongside the release of women, elderly men and wounded hostages from the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.

“There’s a deal ready to move ahead on phase one if we get the arrangements worked out,” the official said during a phone briefing with reporters.

Among the remaining issues was the requirement for Hamas to provide a list of whom it will free and when, and how many inmates it demands to see released from Israeli prison in exchange.

“We need some things from Hamas, including the hostages who are going to come out. We’re not going to do a deal until we know exactly the hostages who are coming out and the schedule that they’re coming out,” the senior US administration official clarified.

This was a sticking point raised by Israel months ago but has more recently been absent from public comments and leaks regarding the state of the negotiations.

“It’s a very different negotiation now than just a month ago, when we had some fundamentally unbridgeable issues,” the official said.

The official clarified that Thursday’s meetings wouldn’t be about getting Netanyahu to sign onto a finalized deal.

“I don’t expect the meeting to be a yes or no,” he said, adding that it will instead be aimed at closing gaps in the talks.

The official noted that there will be subsequent critical in-person meetings between stakeholders in Washington over the coming week.

Biden vowed in a Wednesday address to the nation to continue working to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza during his final six months in office.

For weeks, though, Biden has claimed the sides are close to a deal. And talks appeared poised to drag on further as Netanyahu plans to order the Israeli hostage negotiating team to raise new demands when they meet with mediators next, according to a senior Israeli official. That meeting was supposed to take place Thursday, but Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the premier was holding back the negotiating team until after he met with Biden in the White House.

It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 24 hostages have also been recovered, including three abductees mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.

Five of the bodies were those of Ravid Katz, Oren Goldin, Maya Goren, Staff Sgt. Tomer Yaakov Ahimas, and Sgt. Kiril Brodski, recovered in an IDF operation in Gaza on Wednesday.