Hamas said it has accepted a proposal from mediators to release one living American-Israeli hostage and the bodies of four dual-national hostages who died in captivity.
The militant group did not immediately specify when the release of soldier Edan Alexander and the four bodies would occur, and other countries party to the agreement did not immediately confirm the Hamas statement.
Mr Alexander was 19 when he was taken from his base on the border with Gaza in southern Israel during the Hamas attack on October 7 2023 that sparked the war.
The statement comes as talks continue in Doha to try to broker the next stage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the first phase of which ended two weeks ago.
Following the Hamas statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu huddled with top advisers in security consultations, according to an Israeli official who was not authorised to speak on the record about the matter.
Tens of thousands have died in the conflict (AP)
It was not clear which parties had participated in negotiating the deal. 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.
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 Mr Netanyahu’s office.
It was not immediately clear whether those talks were at all linked to Hamas’s Friday announcement about the release of the American hostage.
In a separate statement, Hamas official Husam Badran reaffirmed what he said was Hamas’s 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.
Israel is pressing the militant group to accept an extension of the first phase of the ceasefire.
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.