On Monday, the Israeli occupation forces announced the liberation of two Israeli hostages, in a bloody operation in the Rafah Governorate, south of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli media quoted the army as saying that the matter concerns Fernando Simon Marman (60 years old) and Louis Harr (70 years old), who were captured on October 7th.

An American official in the Biden administration said in a statement to CNN that the operation may have led to the death of about 100 Palestinians.

In the same context, the United States considered on Monday that reaching an agreement between Israel and Hamas to release the hostages in exchange for establishing a truce in Gaza is still possible and its benefits will be “enormous.”

Sources familiar with the developments said that CIA Director William Burns is expected to arrive in Cairo on Tuesday to hold a new round of talks on a Qatari-brokered agreement, after Israel rejected Hamas’ initial response to it last week.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters, “There were a number of untenable provisions in the proposal that came as a response from Hamas, but we believe that reaching an agreement is possible and we will continue our efforts” to achieve it.

He added, “We believe that the benefits of a truce and reaching an agreement on the hostages are enormous, not only for the hostages who will be released, but also for the humanitarian efforts in Gaza and our ability to begin seeking an effective and lasting solution to this conflict.”

The proposal, which was put forward for the first time during talks that took place in Paris and brought together Burns with senior Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials, stipulates a temporary halt to the fighting in exchange for Hamas releasing the hostages.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after talks last week with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, rejected Hamas’ counter-proposal and pledged to deal a “deadly blow” to Hamas.

The Israeli security services announced that they were able to release on Sunday night two hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas fighters during an operation in Rafah, which is witnessing the heaviest battles and bombings and where 1.4 million displaced Palestinians are crowded.

The Ministry of Health in the Hamas government confirmed on Monday that the operation led to the death of “about a hundred martyrs.”

The operation came hours after a phone conversation between Netanyahu and President Joe Biden, who said that the United States opposes the attack on Rafah without a plan to protect civilians.

“Our assessment is that this air strike is not the beginning of a large-scale attack in Rafah,” Miller said.

He added, “We will make clear (…) as we did last weekend, and as the president did in his conversation over the weekend (…) that without a plan like this that is credible and they can implement it, we do not support launching a large-scale military operation there.”