Hamas said on Friday that it had agreed to free Edan Alexander, an American Israeli soldier who has been held in Gaza for 17 months, and return the remains of four other hostages holding foreign passports, without specifying when they would be released or what it was demanding in exchange.
The Israeli government said that Hamas was engaged in “psychological warfare,” suggesting a deal was unlikely to be imminent. The office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said Hamas was “continuing to reject” other proposals that Israel had deemed acceptable.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office said he would convene Israeli ministers on Saturday night to get a detailed readout from Israeli negotiators who had been meeting in Qatar to discuss the next steps in the cease-fire with Hamas. The statement did not provide any further details on the Hamas proposal.
Israel and Hamas are supposed to be negotiating the second phase of the Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal that began in January. But those talks have seen little progress given entrenched disputes between the two sides over who will control the Palestinian enclave.
Last week, the Trump administration held meetings with Hamas, sidestepping the deadlocked Israeli-Hamas negotiations, in an attempt to free the remaining American hostages held in Gaza. Adam Boehler, President Trump’s nominee for special envoy for hostage affairs, met with senior Hamas officials in Doha.
Hamas and other militant groups seized about 250 hostages during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited the war in Gaza. More than 100 have returned alive to Israel after deals with Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israeli soldiers retrieved the bodies of dozens of others during their ground invasion of Gaza.
Up to 24 living hostages and the bodies of at least 35 others are still in Gaza, according to the Israeli government. They include five Americans: Mr. Alexander, the last American Israeli hostage still believed to be alive, and four others who are presumed dead.
Mr. Alexander grew up in New Jersey to Israeli-born parents. After high school, he moved to Israel to enlist in the military; he was abducted from the post where he was stationed during the Hamas-led attack. Hamas published a hostage video featuring him last year.
Hamas’s announcement could place Mr. Netanyahu in a tight position. Rejecting an offer to bring home Israelis held captive in Gaza — even at a steep price — would spark domestic criticism in Israel, where bringing home the remaining hostages is a national priority.
But the prospect that captives holding another nationality like Mr. Alexander might be prioritized immediately prompted furious denunciation by relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
“If Israel insists on stopping in the middle and leaves its citizens behind — let every Israeli mother know that she must get her son a foreign passport, or else he’ll be abandoned,” the Hostage Families’ Forum, an advocacy group, said in a statement.
