June 20, 2025
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas terrorists on Monday released an Israeli-American soldier who had been held hostage in Gaza for more than 19 months.
Edan Alexander, 21, was the first hostage released since Israel ended an eight-week ceasefire with Hamas in March.
He was handed over to the Red Cross and then to Israeli forces before being flown by helicopter to a hospital in Tel Aviv. Israeli authorities released video and photos showing a pale but smiling Alexander in an emotional reunion with his mother and other family members.
Wearing shirts emblazoned with his name, Alexander's extended family gathered in Tel Aviv to watch the release. They chanted his name when the military said he was free, while in the city's Hostage Square, hundreds of people broke out into cheers.
Alexander's grandmother, Varda Ben Baruch, beamed. She said her grandson looked mostly all right in the first photo of him after nearly 600 days in captivity.
“He seemed like a man. He has really matured,” she said. Reports that Alexander cracked a joke on the phone while speaking to his mother for the first time did not surprise her. “He’s got such a sense of humor,” she said.
Alexander was 19 when he was abducted from his military base in southern Israel during Hamas' cross-border terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the war in Gaza.
In his hometown of Tenafly, New Jersey, hundreds of supporters packed the streets, holding signs with his image and listening to speakers blasting Israeli music. As they watched the news of his release on a large screen, the crowd hugged and waved Israeli flags. Since he was taken hostage, supporters there gathered every Friday to march for the hostages’ release.
Israel says 58 hostages remain in captivity, with about 23 of them said to be alive. Many of the 250 hostages abducted by Hamas-led terrorists in the 2023 attack were freed in ceasefire deals.
U.S. President Donald Trump was set to arrive Tuesday in the Middle East on the first official foreign trip of his second term.
Trump on Sunday called the planned release “a step taken in good faith towards the United States and the efforts of the mediators — Qatar and Egypt — to put an end to this very brutal war and return ALL living hostages and remains to their loved ones.”
“Hopefully this is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict. I look very much forward to that day of celebration!” Trump said on social media.
Trump, who is traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, is not scheduled to stop in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Monday with the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and discussed efforts to release the remaining hostages, his office said.
Netanyahu "directed that a negotiations team leave for Doha tomorrow,” the prime minister's office said, adding that Netanyahu “made it clear that the negotiations would only take place under fire.”
Netanyahu said Alexander's release “was achieved thanks to our military pressure and the diplomatic pressure applied by President Trump. This is a winning combination.”
