Hamas said it was “keen” on reaching a cease-fire agreement with Israel, denying what it said were U.S. claims it is stalling negotiations to end the devastating conflict in Gaza.

The Iran-backed Palestinian militant group on Tuesday said remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden and his top diplomat, Antony Blinken, were “misleading and don’t reflect the reality of the movement’s position.”

The comments, in a statement on Telegram, came a day after Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said the next step toward a truce is for “Hamas to say yes.”

Blinken said Netanyahu had accepted a proposal the U.S. is calling a “bridging agreement” to tide the sides over until they iron out the final details.

Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, said the proposal was different from a Biden-led plan unveiled in May, suggesting they are unhappy with Israel’s latest demands.

The two sides are meant to start a new round of negotiations in Cairo this week, but no date’s been set for that yet. Egypt is mediating, along with the U.S. and Qatar.

The war erupted when Hamas fighters swarmed into southern Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage. Israel’s subsequent air and ground assault on Gaza has killed almost 40,000 people, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run territory.

Biden is trying to use his last months in office to end the conflict, which has caused huge political divisions globally. The president sent Blinken back to the region this week to help clinch a deal. The U.S. secretary of state was in Israel on Monday and on Tuesday met Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in the Mediterranean town of El Alamein. He’s set to visit Qatar next.

One of the main problems is that Hamas wants any cease-fire to amount to a permanent end to the war, while Israel wants to be able to restart the conflict to achieve its aim of destroying the group’s military and governing capabilities.

There are also tensions over Israel wanting to keep troops stationed along the strategic Philadelphi corridor, the southern portion of Gaza that runs along the border with Egypt, to prevent arms smuggling from the Arab nation.

“The first thing is to eliminate Hamas and achieve victory,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday. “The second thing is that we are, at the same time, making an effort to return the hostages, on terms that will allow for the maximum number of hostages being released in the first stage of the deal.”

Israel must “preserve our strategic security assets in the face of major domestic and foreign pressure,” Netanyahu said, mentioning its seizure of the Philadelphi corridor and the Rafah border crossing with Egypt earlier in the war.

Iran, meanwhile, said its response to the alleged Israeli killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran could take a long time. That signaled the Islamic Republic won’t rush an expected retaliation that has raised fears of a region-wide war.

“Time is on our side and it’s possible that the waiting period for this response will be long,” an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesman said to Iranian state TV on Tuesday. Israel “must await calculated and precise strikes at the appropriate time.”

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied assassinating Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief, who died on July 31.

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