Israeli tanks and artillery fire continue to bombard the devastated Gaza Strip and the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on the destruction of the Palestinian group Hamas as part of a ceasefire plan put forward by US President Joe Biden, raising questions about the prospects of an agreement.

During a White House press conference on Friday, Biden said Israel had presented “a comprehensive new proposal” to end the war. The three-phase plan aims to implement a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip This includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of the Gaza Strip and the release of all Israelis held captive in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has signaled that it is open to the proposal, raising hopes that it will end the eight-month war in Israel.

In a statement, the group “reiterates its readiness to engage positively and cooperate with any proposal based on a permanent ceasefire, complete withdrawal from Gaza, reconstruction, the return of displaced persons to their homes and the conclusion of a genuine prisoner exchange agreement, provided that the occupying power declares its explicit commitment to this.”

But on Saturday, Netanyahu stuck to his statement that Hamas must be destroyed if Israel's war against Gaza is to end.

“Israel's conditions for ending the war have not changed: destroying Hamas' military and government capabilities, releasing all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” his office said in a statement.

It said these conditions must be met “before a permanent ceasefire can come into force.”

“The idea that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are met is doomed to failure,” it added.

Abdullah al-Arian, a professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar, pointed to a “major contradiction” in the demand: Both Israel and its loyal ally, the United States, said they did not want a future in Gaza in which Hamas would play any political role.

“At the same time, it is an agreement that would have to be reached through negotiations with Hamas. So how do you do that? How do you eliminate them as a political force and at the same time reach a negotiated solution that all parties agree to,” he told Al Jazeera.

Another “major sticking point” on the way to a final agreement is Israel's continued occupation in some parts of the Gaza Strip, which he said the Palestinians have always rejected.

Alon Liel, former director of Israel's Foreign Ministry, said Biden's announcement was “music to the ears of Israelis who want to end the war.”

But there is again a “mixed message from Washington,” he told Al Jazeera. “The surprising thing was that [the ceasefire proposal] was described as an Israeli offer. This contradicts many things Netanyahu has said recently; it looks more like an American offer presented as an Israeli one,” Liel said.

Meanwhile, the armed group Palestinian Islamic Jihad expressed “distrust” of the plan announced by Biden and said the “cessation of aggression” must include a “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Blinken lobbies Middle East leaders

As Biden unveiled the new plan, Israel continued its deadly attacks on Gaza. Artillery fire hit residential buildings in the northern neighborhoods of Gaza City, killing several Palestinians.

In another Israeli attack in the early hours of the morning in Gaza City, a journalist named Ola al-Dahdouh was also killed, according to the Palestinian television channel Al-Aqsa.

The Israeli armed forces also hammered Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip with tanks and artillery, while witnesses described heavy artillery fire in the east and center of Rafah.

In the shadow of the ongoing Israeli bombardment, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with senior diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey to gain support for the new ceasefire plan for Gaza.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud received a call from Blinken in which they discussed the latest proposal, the Saudi state news agency reported.

According to US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, in these phone calls from his plane after returning from a NATO meeting in Prague, Blinken stressed that Hamas should accept the agreement immediately.

“[Blinken] stressed that the proposal was in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians and the long-term security of the region,” Miller added.

In Israel, opposition leader Yair Lapid urged Netanyahu to approve the deal, saying his party would support it even if right-wing factions in the ruling coalition rebelled, making a deal likely to pass in parliament.

“The Israeli government cannot ignore President Biden's momentous speech. There is a deal on the table and it should be done,” Lapid said in a social media post on Saturday.

The families of those held captive in the Gaza Strip also called on all parties to immediately support the proposal put forward by Biden, warning that time is running out and that both Israel and Hamas have an obligation to accept the agreement.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's President-elect Prabowo Subianto welcomed Biden's ceasefire proposal as a step in the right direction, saying his country was ready to send peacekeepers to maintain a ceasefire in Gaza if necessary.

“If necessary and at the request of the UN, we stand ready to deploy significant peacekeeping forces to maintain and monitor this prospective ceasefire and to provide protection and security to all parties and sides,” he said on Saturday at a security conference in Singapore.

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 36,379 people and injured 82,407 others since the war began. Thousands more are missing under the rubble and presumed dead. Israel launched its assault on the besieged territory after a Hamas-led attack in southern Israel killed about 1,140 people.