DAYAL AL BARA, Gaza Strip (AP) – Hamas says Gaza’s last American hostage, Edan Alexander, will be released as part of an effort to establish a ceasefire, resume crossings on Israel’s blocked territory and resume providing aid.
Hamas’s voice tomorrow night, I won’t say when the release will occur. The announcement comes just before President Donald Trump makes his visit to the Middle East this week. Trump has no plans to visit Israel.
Alexander is an Israeli-American soldier who grew up in the United States. He was accused of from his base on October 7, 2023 during a Hamas-led attack that sparked the war in Gaza with a Hamas-led attack.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. The Netanyahu government was angry at the in-person meeting with Hamas earlier this year.
Gaza Hamas leader Khalil al-Heyya said the group has been in contact with the US administration for the past few days.
Al Heiya said in a statement that Hamas is ready to “introduce intensive negotiations soon” to reach a final contract for a long-term ceasefire that includes the end of the war, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners and hostages in Gaza, and the handover of power to independent technical groups in Gaza.
Alexander’s parents did not immediately return requests for comment.
Trump and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, have frequently mentioned Alexander (now 21) by name in the past few months. Witkov plans to visit Israel in the next few hours.
“Every time they say Edan’s name, it seems they didn’t forget. They don’t forget that he’s American and they’re working on it,” Edan’s mother, Yael Alexander, told The Associated Press in February.
Hamas released a video of Alexander in November over his favorite holiday, Thanksgiving weekend, his mother said. The video was difficult to watch when he wept and pleaded for help, but it was Ahrelief to see the latest indication that he was alive, she said.
Edan Alexander moved to Israel in 2022 and joined the military in New Jersey, a native of Tenafri, New Jersey, where his parents and two young siblings still live.
The 59 hostages are still in Gaza, and it is believed that about a third of them are alive after most of them have been released in ceasefire contracts and other transactions.
The bombing continues
Israel attacked overnight, killing 15 people in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.
According to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, two strikes attacked the tents in the southern city of Khan Eunice, killing two children and their parents, respectively. Seven more people have been killed in strikes elsewhere, including a man from a Gaza city neighbour and his child, according to the hospital and Gaza Ministry of Health.
The Israeli military says it will target only extremists and try to avoid harm to civilians. Extremists are embedded in densely populated areas, and blame Hamas for the deaths of civilians in the 19-month war. There were no immediate Israeli comments on the latest strike.
Israel sealed Gaza out of all imports, including food, medicine and emergency shelters, with what is said to be a pressure tactic aimed at enforcing Hamas to release hostages. Israel resumed its attacks in March, crushing a ceasefire that encouraged the release of more than 30 hostages.
The United Nations and aid groups say food and other supplies are running low and hunger is widespread. Aid groups say the humanitarian crisis is worse than at any point in the 19-month war.
Children carrying empty bottles chased a water tanker in a devastated area of northern Gaza on Sunday. Residents of the built Shati refugee camp said the water was brought by charities from elsewhere in Gaza. Without it, they rely on salty wells and are often contaminated.
“I’m forced to drink salty water, I have no choice,” Mahmoud Radwan said. “This causes bowel disease and there is no medication to treat it.”
Cogat, the Israeli military body responsible for Palestine’s civilian affairs, says the two months of this year have received ample aid and two of Israel’s three major water supply are still in operation.
Trump visits the area
Trump, who is fully supported by the administration for Israel’s actions, is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this week on a regional tour that does not include Israel.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, the Israeli attacks killed more than 52,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children. The attack destroyed vast areas of the territory and expelled about 90% of its population of around 2 million.
Israel recovers the remains of soldiers killed in Lebanon in 1982
In another development, Israel said it had recovered the bodies of soldiers killed in the 1982 battle in Lebanon after being classified as missing for more than 40 years.
Sergeant recovers. The body of Class 1 TZVI Feldman has been further closed to the incident that has plagued Israel for years. Israeli forces said his body had been recovered from deep in Syria and without providing details.
Netanyahu visited Feldman’s surviving brothers on Sunday and told them that the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad late last year led to an “opportunity” in which Israeli foreign intelligence agencies, the military and Mossad, could collect additional intelligence agencies, and ultimately find and retrieve the bodies.
Feldman, along with five other Israeli soldiers, went missing in a battle with Syrian forces in the Lebanese town of Sultan Yaakub. A few years later, two of the missing soldiers returned to Israel in prison exchanges with Syria. The bodies of another soldier were returned in 2019 after Russia said they helped them find them in Syria, but the fate of the other two remained unknown.
The cases of missing soldiers over the decades have strong emotional and political resonances in Israel, where military service is mandatory for most Jewish men.
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Magiddy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Melanie Ridman in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed to the report.
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Follow AP war reports at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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