In a gaza largely destroyed and on which the Israeli army has already announced a and retaining by military force the areas it takes, Hamas has decided to remember the only and diminishing trick that it possesses: the 59 hostages, mostly lifeless, Israelis or dual nationality, which continue in its possession since October 7, 2023. The Palestinian movement has released this Monday in Jan Yunis The south of the strip, to the only one of those captives with American nationality that remains alive, the soldier Edan Alexander, 21, who is already in Israeli territory, according to the Israeli army. It has been a gesture of “goodwill,” said the spokesman of his armed arm, Abu Obaida, towards the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who will arrive on Tuesday in the Middle East on a first visit to the region in this second term, United. No stop in Israel.
He had advanced that he would free the soldier, one of the about twenty hostages, mostly men between 20 and 30 years old, who are still alive. Al Hague explained that this is his way of showing his availability to immediately initiate the negotiations to achieve a final agreement “that stops the war” and allows the “exchange of prisoners in a consensual way [rehenes por presos palestinos en cárceles israelíes]”.
Those two objectives, the liberation of the hostages and the end of the war, were the ones that foresaw the second phase of the high fire that entered into force in Gaza on January 19 and that the Government of Benjamín Netanyahu broke unilaterally on March 18, precisely not to have to negotiate the end of its military offensive. Since that March, Israeli troops resumed and intensified their military offensive in Gaza. In the almost month and a half since then, Israeli attacks have killed more than 2,700 Palestinians in the strip, where, in 19 months of bombing without truce and military offensive, more than 52,800 people have already died in total, according to sanitary sources of the occupied Palestinian territory.
The release of Soldier Alexander, who has been the first hostage delivered by Hamas since the unilateral rupture of that truce by Israel, has been forged without Israeli participation. According to the Palestinian movement, it has been the result of “direct contacts” with Washington. Trump himself indicated this Sunday, in a message on his social network Truth, that these negotiations have had Egypt and Qatar as mediators – one of the states that will be released this week – two states that also sponsored the two ephemeral treguasses – in November 2023 and from January to March this year – that has known the Palestinian territory since October 2023.
“I am grateful to all those who have participated to produce this monumental news,” Trump said. The president then expressed his desire that this release “is the first of the final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict. I hope that day of celebration.” In a new message this Monday, before the military delivery was confirmed, Trump has congratulated that the “American hostage that was believed dead” will be “released by Hamas”, before apostillating that it is “great news!”. Washington informed the Israeli government of the imminent liberation of soldier Alexander on Sunday, according to the office of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is not clear, however, if the Israeli authorities had been informed before negotiations.
Hamas’s gesture towards Trump happens on the eve of that president’s visit to the region, of high symbolic content – is his first official trip abroad – which does not include a stop in Israel. This is at a time when Washington’s negotiations with Iran about the nuclear program of that country – which Israel does not see with good eyes – and the US pact with the hutis rebels in Yemen point to a possible cooling of the bilateral relationship with the administration of Netanyahu. That pact with Yemeni militiamen has not sat well in Israel, mainly for one reason: he does not mention the obligation for those rebels to cease his attacks against the territory of the Jewish state.
Already confirmed, both by Washington and Hamas, the Israeli prime minister has denied Monday morning that this is the prelude to something the fire in Gaza. His office of the Prime Minister has reported after Israel will send a negotiating delegation to Doha, the Qatari capital, to initiate indirect conversations with Hamas with a view to getting a truce that allows to apply “the scheme planned for the release of hostages, before the escalation of the fighting”, a euphemism with which it probably refers to the rupture of the truce by Israel by Israel on March 18. That announcement has been made public after Netanyahu met with the special envoy of the White House for, and with the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.
The Israeli prime minister did pointed, however, that the attacks of his forces in Gaza would stop momentaryly to allow the hostage to be released safely. An unusual calm in the Queen strip in the Palestinian territory occupied since this noon, have declared Tres Gazatis to Reuters. Netanyahu thanked Trump on Monday by his help for the liberation of the soldier, as reported by his office.
Hostage Meeting with Trump
Edan Alexander is a soldier with dual Israeli and American nationality captured on October 7, 2023, at age 19, on a base near Gaza, where he was doing military service. That day, Hamas militants broke into Israeli territory, killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251. Born in Tel Aviv but raised in New Jersey, he didn’t even reside in this country. It was what is known as a “lonely”, that is, a young man who goes to Israel to fulfill compulsory military service.
Shortly before liberation, a source “familiar with details” had indicated to the Saudi television channel to Sharq, cited in turn by Haaretzthat the two mediating countries and the Red Cross had confirmed that the Israelo-American hostage was “alive and in good health.” The delivery took place at 16.30 on Monday, 17.30 during Spanish peninsular schedule, without public ceremony, as Hamas did in several of the release of the 38 kidnapped that delivered Israel during the filled truce in March.
After the release of the soldier, the Red Cross will move to a meeting point with the Israeli army inside the strip, where a military doctor will take a first exam. They will then take him to the Rein base, next to the border of Gaza, but in Israeli territory, where he will meet with his family. Subsequently, he will be driven by helicopter to the Ichilov Hospital of Tel Aviv, where a more exhaustive check will be practiced. According to Haaretzif your condition allows it, the American hostage will travel to Qatar this week to meet in person with Trump.
The forum that brings together the majority of the families of the hostages has assured Monday in a statement that this release is the proof of “how a specific leadership can achieve results.” On May 2, the Israeli prime minister had struck the fears of these families that the release of the kidnapped is not, in fact, in a predominant place in the government’s agenda, stating that his return was a “very important task”, but submitting it to the objective that he defined as supreme in Gaza: the total victory. Dozens of these relatives have marched on Monday until the headquarters of the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv. On his posters, a motto could be read: “In Trump, We Trust” (we trust in Trump).
