U.S. officials believe it is highly unlikely that a hostages-for-ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas will be reached before the November presidential election, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Friday, citing staff from the White House, State Department and Pentagon.

“No deal is imminent. I’m not sure it ever gets done,” one of the officials was quoted as saying.

The recent flare-up between Israel and Hezbollah has further reduced the chances of a successful diplomatic effort to halt the war in the Gaza Strip. “There’s no chance now of it happening,” an anonymous official from an Arab state told the Journal.

The American officials foremost blamed Hamas’s negotiation tactics for the impasse, with the terror group repeatedly sending a list of demands and then refusing to progress in talks even when Jerusalem agrees to the terms, according to the report.

The report dovetails with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s harsh criticism last week of accusations he was “torpedoing” a potential deal, saying the claims echoed Hamas’s terror propaganda.

“The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acceded to every American proposal for releasing the hostages despite the ultimatum from elements in the coalition completely refutes the claim that he has torpedoed any deal whatsoever due to political considerations,” his office said in a statement in response to the Channel 12 report.

The PMO provided a timeline of Netanyahu’s actions, starting with a proposal sent to mediators on April 27 which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “very generous.”

On May 31, the premier agreed to U.S. President Joe Biden’s ceasefire proposal, and then on Aug. 16, he agreed to the American “final bridging proposal,” according to the statement.

The statement points out that on June 12, Blinken confirmed that Jerusalem had agreed to the proposal, while Hamas rejected it.

The PMO pointed to other similar statements from U.S. officials, including Deputy CIA Director David S. Cohen, who said on Aug. 28 that Israel was showing seriousness in the negotiations and that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar would have to respond.

On Sept. 9, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East McGurk said that Hamas was to blame for the lack of a deal. On the same day, Israel’s National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz said, “Hamas has not accepted the framework for months and the world is expected to back Israel.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Egypt on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal was the “best chance” to restore stability in the Middle East.

“We all know that a ceasefire is the best chance to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to address risks to regional stability,” Blinken told reporters at a joint press conference in Cairo, speaking alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

Washington’s top diplomat said the sides had agreed on 15 out of 18 paragraphs of the agreement, but that outstanding issues needed to be resolved.

(JNS)