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JERUSALEM: Hamas said on Friday it has accepted a proposal from mediators to release one living American-Israeli hostage and the bodies of four dual-nationals who had died in captivity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office cast doubt on the offer, accusing Hamas of trying to manipulate talks underway in Qatar on the next stage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
The militant group in the Gaza Strip did not immediately specify when the release of soldier Edan Alexander and the four bodies would occur — or what it expected to get in return.
Alexander was 19 when he was abducted from his base on the border with Gaza in southern Israel during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 that sparked the war.
It was not clear which mediators had proposed the release to Hamas. The United States, led by the Trump administration’s hostage envoy Steve Witkoff, has been pushing for a proposal that would extend the truce and see a limited number of hostage for prisoner exchanges.
Following the Hamas statement, Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “accepted the Witkoff outline and showed flexibility,” but said that “Hamas is refusing and will not budge from its positions.”
“At the same time, it continues to use manipulation and psychological warfare — the reports about Hamas’ willingness to release American hostages are intended to sabotage the negotiations,” the prime minister’s office said.
It added that Netanyahu would convene his ministerial team on Saturday night to receive a detailed report from the negotiation team and “decide on the next steps for the release of hostages.”
The first phase of the ceasefire ended two weeks ago.
The White House last week made a surprise announcement, saying that American officials had engaged in “ongoing talks and discussions” with Hamas officials, stepping away from a long-held US policy of not directly engaging with the militant group. That prompted a terse response from Netanyahu’s office.
It was not immediately clear whether those talks were at all linked to Hamas’ Friday announcement about the release of the American hostage.
In a separate statement, Hamas official Husam Badran reaffirmed what he said was Hamas’ commitment to fully implementing the ceasefire agreement in all its phases, warning that any Israeli deviation from the terms would return negotiations to square one.
The ceasefire has paused the deadliest and most destructive fighting ever between Israel and Hamas. The first phase allowed the return of 25 living hostages and the remains of eight others in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli forces have withdrawn to buffer zones inside Gaza, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza for the first time since early in the war, and hundreds of trucks of aid entered per day until Israel suspended supplies.
Israel has been pressing Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for an extension of the first phase, and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.
Two weeks ago, Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza and its more than 2 million people as it pressed Hamas to agree. The militant group has said that the move would affect the remaining hostages as well.
Hamas wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace.
The militant group said with support cut off to Gaza, some 80 percent of the population has now lost access to food sources, with aid distribution halted and markets running out of supplies, while 90 percent are unable to access clean drinking water.
In Jerusalem, some 80,000 Muslim worshippers prayed on Friday at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound for the second week of Ramadan, according to the Islamic Trust, which monitors the site. Israel is tightly controlling access, allowing only men over 55 and women over 50 to enter from the occupied territory for the prayers.
“The conditions are extremely difficult,” said Yousef Badeen, a Palestinian who had left the southern West Bank city of Hebron at dawn to make it to Jerusalem, said. “We wish they will open it for good.”
Hamas accused Israel of escalating a “religious war” against Palestinians with what it called the “systematic targeting of Muslim religious practices” through its restrictions at Al-Aqsa mosque.