After Hamas announced Friday it agreed to a proposal to release hostage soldier Edan Alexander — a dual US-Israeli citizen –and the bodies of four other slain captives who are dual nationals, the Prime Minister’s Office blasted the terror group for rejecting a proposal by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and saying that Hamas was engaged in psychological warfare.

The Witkoff outline, which Israel says was proposed by the US envoy, would see 10 living hostages released immediately, a ceasefire through the end of Passover, and a possible release of all the other hostages if an agreement is reached on ending the war.

“While Israel has accepted the Witkoff proposal,” the Prime Minister’s Office said, “Hamas remains firm in its refusal and has not budged one millimeter.”

The PMO accused Hamas of engaging in “manipulation and psychological warfare.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene top aides and senior ministers on Saturday night to hear a briefing from Israel’s negotiators, his office said, and to decide on the next steps.

According to the PMO, negotiators who have spent the past week in Doha conducting mediated talks with Hamas will be brought home on Friday.

Netanyahu scheduled a security assessment at 2 p.m. following Hamas’s announcement, Channel 12 news reported.

Alexander is a soldier who was stationed near the Gaza Strip on the morning of October 7, 2023, when he was taken captive by Hamas during their brutal onslaught in southern Israel.

In its official statement, Hamas did not provide the names of the four slain dual nationals or when they would be released.

The terror group said it “affirms its complete readiness to initiate negotiations and reach a comprehensive agreement on the issues of the second phase while calling for the occupation (Israel) to fully implement its obligations.”

The Hamas move appeared aimed at driving a wedge between Israel and the US.

The Hamas statement indicated that the terror group had accepted a proposal that was discussed during direct talks with US hostage envoy Adam Boehler, which had been held in recent weeks.

Those talks infuriated Jerusalem, which wasn’t fully kept in the loop, didn’t like that Boehler was discussing Israeli concessions without its knowledge and feared it would lead Washington to abandon the remaining Israeli hostages after such a deal was reached.

But Boehler’s remit is specifically to try and free American hostages worldwide and his effort was approved by US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff when the main track of negotiations was stuck due to Israel’s refusal to accept the terms of the current deal’s second phase.

There hadn’t appeared to have been a breakthrough in Boehler’s direct talks — which broke off after Israel learned about them and leaked their existence to the media, according to two US officials — and talks had returned to their original channel led by Witkoff with mediating from Qatar and Egypt in Doha.

Hamas’s decision to suddenly accept a proposal to release the American and slain dual national hostages points to an attempt to divide the US and Israel by daring Jerusalem to deny an opportunity to free American hostages.

Channel 12 noted Friday afternoon that Israel took a decision in principle at the start of the war not to favor hostages with dual nationalities over those without in its negotiations for the release of captives.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum slammed the PMO statement, stating that the issue of the hostages was more urgent and could not wait until after Shabbat for Netanyahu to meet ministers.

“Twenty-four hours in captivity is 24 hours in hell, torture and abuse, those are 24 hours of danger of death and disappearance,” the statement said, citing the principle of Pikuah Nefesh in Jewish law, which allows the laws of the sabbath to be broken to save lives.

In an earlier statement, the forum said they welcome any opportunity to bring hostages home. Addressing Netanyahu, it said it was “deeply horrified” by the chance that hostages may remain in captivity for another extended period and urged him to end the war in exchange for a deal to release them all.

“If the Hamas announcement is true and gets underway, the return of those hostages should be the opening to an agreement that will bring everyone back in immediately in a single stage,” the forum said.

“Otherwise, it is selectivity that separates Zionism from its values and continues the abandonment of October 7 on the basis of a foreign passport. If Israel insists on stopping in the middle [of the deal] and leaves its citizens behind — the entire Jewish people will know that they must issue their child a foreign passport, or they will be abandoned,” it said.

A gaunt-looking Alexander appeared in a Hamas propaganda video released in November, in which he called on the Israeli government to bring him home. In the second half of the video, Alexander speaks in English and calls on the incoming Trump administration to work for his release.

Alexander was born in Tel Aviv, grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey, and joined Golani as a lone soldier after graduating from high school in 2022.

During ongoing ceasefire talks in Doha this week, Witkoff reportedly proposed to extend the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip by several weeks in exchange for Hamas releasing five living and 10 dead hostages — a separate, newer proposal to the one the PMO referenced Friday in its statement.

The existence and details of the new US outline were first reported by Axios, which cited sources familiar with the matter.

The alternate proposal would extend the current ceasefire by several weeks, until the end of both Ramadan and Passover, in exchange for the release of additional hostages, according to the Axios report. At the same time, Israel would also be required to resume the flow of humanitarian aid into the war-torn Palestinian enclave.

Hebrew media outlets reported later Thursday that the US proposal provides for five living and 10 dead hostages to be returned and extending the ceasefire for a further 42-50 days.

Israel gave “a positive response” to Witkoff’s latest proposal, the Axios report said, while Qatar and Egypt were still awaiting Hamas’s response after delivering the details of the outline to the terror group on Wednesday night.

According to a Channel 12 report on Friday, Israel has demanded that eight living hostages be freed.

Hamas, for its part, has demanded that the US guarantee that there will be discussions on phase two of the current deal, which provides for the full withdrawal of the IDF and the end of the war. Netanyahu has refused to hold negotiations on the second phase despite the agreement’s stipulations.

Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire that began in January. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.

The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas and is counted among the 59 hostages.