US administration officials now admit that reaching a cease-fire agreement between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is unlikely before President Joe Biden completes his term in January 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The newspaper cited top White House, State Department and Pentagon officials, whom it did not name.

Neither the US presidency, nor the State Department, nor the Defense Department responded when Reuters news agency asked them to comment on the report.

“I can tell you that we don’t believe” that a deal is out of the question, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Sigg told accredited reporters yesterday.

Two weeks ago, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken assured that “90%” of the agreement is ready and it remains for the parties to finalize it.

Qatar, Egypt and the US, which are mediating the indirect negotiations, have been trying in vain for months to secure a truce in the Gaza Strip, but Israel and Hamas accuse each other of preventing an agreement.

Two of the major obstacles are seen as Israel’s demand that its military maintain control of the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, a narrow strip of land on the Gaza Strip’s closed border with Egypt, and specific details about Palestinians held in Israeli detention centers that they will be exchanged for the 64 hostages who remain in the hands of militants in the Gaza Strip.

The United States believes that if a cease-fire agreement is reached in the Gaza Strip, it would de-escalate the tension in the region, which has escalated even more this week, increasing the concern that the war is now on its way to spread to Lebanon.