Hostage negotiations to free many of the 200-plus people believed to be held by extremists in Gaza have "reached a very sensitive stage" as some key areas of disagreement preventing a deal have "narrowed," a top White House official said Sunday, suggesting a breakthrough could be imminent -- but is not certain. Via ABC News:

"These talks have clearly reached a very sensitive stage," President Joe Biden's deputy national security adviser, Jon Finer, told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz.

"We're following this minute by minute, hour by hour, and have been over a number of weeks," Finer said. "And this is an incredibly high priority for all of us in this administration up to and including, certainly, the president."

Amid new reporting that an agreement is on the verge of being struck for a large number of the captives in exchange for a potentially dayslong pause in the fighting sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, Finer said "significant progress" had been made as recently as this weekend.

But he cautioned that the work was not done.