worries them, especially as the idf says israeli hostages have already been found dead in gaza. >> orrin liebermann for us tonight in tel aviv. orrin, thank you very much. >>> more now on the hostage talks and how the biden administration sees them progressing. mj lee is at the white house tonight. what are you hearing about the negotiations? >> reporter: we are sensing a new level of optimism that an agreement may be near and may even be days away from being announced. we have been covering these negotiations for weeks now and we have heard at various other points that a deal may be close to being announced. the recording for myself and my colleague, alex marquardt, is according to a draft of a potential agreement, what would happen is that hamas would release 50 hostages in exchange for israel pausing the fighting for four to five days. now, the gaps between the parties, we are told, are beginning to close, though there have been deliberations, ongoing deliberations, about how exactly such a deal might be implemented, and some questions about the humanitarian aid that hamas has been demanding fro

joining me now is orrin en liebermann for more on this. the idf has said that these what they covered in this tunnel shaft is part of the reason for the continued operation in the hospital. and as i come to you, i'm sure you will agree that it's understandable that people who are in this hamas hospital will not want to contradict hamas. >> right. that's what make this is so difficult. u.n. has wanted to investigate themselves because frankly they don't put a tremendous amount of stock in either side given the length and what they have seen in had this conflict. so they have called for an independent verification, an independent investigation to see what the tunnel shaft was for. so what do we know for certain? cnn was able to geolocate the video released and it shows that it is, in fact, within the complex of the hospital. it clearly shows what looks like the entrance to a tunnel and there's some wiring, tubing, piping, some metal there and concrete. the question is what's inside that tunnel. that is what cnn cannot independently verify or

orrin len liebermann is tel avi. mj lee is at the white house. i want to start with you.t was pretty remarkable moment from the president of the united states to lean that far into where he thinks that this negotiation is right now. >> yeah, that's right. you heard the president saying that we are very close to a deal and that echoes what sources have been telling cnn all morning. that the u.s., israel and hamas are on the cusp of announcing this deal and it could come as early as today. i was in the room when the president made those remarks. i did try to ask him at the end how many americans he believes maybe among the 50 hostages. he said i'll have plenty of time to talk, but declining to go into any of the details. and i'll let him speak to the contours of the potential deal, but at least for the biden administration, this has been an you are priority trying to get the hostages out because they believe there are at least a handful of american citizens in the mix in gaza being held by hamas. and now what u.s. officials are saying is that they are hopeful that 3-year-ol