Hamas’ army wing launched a propaganda video Saturday displaying an Israeli American hostage.
It was the primary video of its form shared in months.
The undated video, posted on the safe messaging service Telegram, exhibits 20-year-old Edan Alexander. The message says Alexander has been held captive by Hamas for greater than 420 days. If true, the video would have been taken this previous week.
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Within the video – talking in a combination of Hebrew and English – Alexander speaks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying “you have got uncared for us.”
He additionally addressed President-elect Donald Trump, asking him to make use of his “affect and the complete energy of the USA to barter for our freedom.”
In an announcement through the Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board Headquarters, Alexander’s mom Yael Alexander mentioned her son “represents all of the residing hostages who can’t make their voices heard, and this voice must reverberate and shake everybody!”
Nationwide Safety Adviser Jake Sullivan, showing on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday, referred to as the video a “merciless reminder of the barbarity and the brutality of Hamas.”
Sullivan famous that he thinks Hamas is “feeling the stress” after Hezbollah reduce a ceasefire deal with Israel final week, and after Hamas’ high chief Yahya Sinwar was killed in October. The nationwide safety adviser mentioned Hamas “could also be trying anew” at the opportunity of reaching a deal to finish the preventing and return the hostages.
“The important thing actor proper now holding the choice on the ceasefire is Hamas,” Sullivan mentioned.Â
Alexander grew up in New Jersey and was a soldier within the Israeli army when Hamas militants attacked on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023. The then 19-year-old was in a position to ship a fast message to his mom amid the extreme preventing round his base close to the Gaza border.
He advised her that regardless of having shrapnel embedded in his helmet from the explosions, he had managed to get to a protected space. After 7 a.m., his household misplaced contact, the Related Press reported.
“He advised me regardless that issues had been already getting harmful round him. That was the final time I heard my son’s voice. I can’t describe the ache of not understanding the place your little one is or how is he,” Yael Alexander advised CBS New York in October.
When a week-long ceasefire final November introduced the discharge of 105 hostages in trade for 240 Palestinian prisoners, a number of the freed hostages mentioned they’d seen Alexander in captivity. Varda Ben Baruch, his grandmother, advised the AP that the hostages advised her Alexander saved his cool, encouraging them that everybody could be launched quickly.
Maya Alleruzzo / AP
Alexander’s father Adi Alexander advised “CBS Mornings” in September that they’re pushing Israeli and American leaders for a ceasefire deal.
“We hope he is holding up and we’re coming for him,” Adi Alexander mentioned. “He must survive.”
Adi and Yael Alexander met with President Biden and Trump in Washington earlier this month and pleaded with them to work collectively to convey all of the hostages house in a single deal, in keeping with the AP.
Greater than 250 folks had been kidnapped and 1,200 killed when Hamas militants burst throughout the border and carried out a bloody assault on southern Israeli communities. Israel’s subsequent struggle in opposition to Hamas has since killed greater than 43,000 Palestinians, in keeping with native well being officers.
Maya Alleruzzo / AP
Netanyahu’s workplace mentioned in an announcement Saturday that he has spoken with Alexander’s household after the discharge of the “brutal psychological warfare video.”
“The Prime Minister mentioned within the dialog that he felt very effectively the agony going by Edan and the hostages and their households, and promised that Israel is working with dedication and in each technique to return them house, together with all of the hostages who’re within the palms of the enemy,” the assertion mentioned.
U.S. Nationwide Safety Council spokesperson Sean Savett mentioned the White Home has been involved with the Alexander household. He mentioned in an announcement on Saturday that the propaganda video is “a merciless reminder of Hamas’s terror in opposition to residents of a number of nations, together with our personal.”
“The struggle in Gaza would cease tomorrow and the struggling of Gazans would finish instantly — and would have ended months in the past — if Hamas agreed to launch the hostages,” Savett mentioned. “It has refused to take action, however because the President mentioned final week, we now have a crucial alternative to conclude the deal to launch the hostages, cease the struggle, and surge humanitarian help into Gaza. This deal is on the desk now.”
The Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board Headquarters mentioned in an announcement that the video is “particular proof that regardless of all of the rumors – there live hostages and they’re struggling enormously.”
“One 12 months after the primary and solely deal, it is clear to everybody: returning the hostages is simply doable by a deal,” the group mentioned. “After greater than 420 days of steady abuse, hunger and darkness, the urgency of bringing house all 101 hostages can’t be overstated.”
