A disturbing video showing American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander was released Saturday night by Hamas.
In the heavily edited propaganda video, Alexander, 20, pleads for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to free him and the other 100 hostages held by Hamas.
“The fear is at its peak, and we are dying a thousand times every day that passes, and no one feels for us,” Alexander says in the video.
The video of Alexander is the first time in months Hamas has released a hostage video. In April, the group shared a video of another American-Israeli hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was killed in August — and Alexander referenced him in his own video, saying he didn’t want to “end up dead like my fellow USA citizen, Hersh.”
Alexander graduated from Tenafly High School in Bergen County, N.J., and left to serve in Israel’s military. He was a soldier stationed near Gaza when he was taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas into Israel.
AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo
Varda Ben Baruch, whose grandson Edan Alexander is held hostage in the Gaza Strip by Hamas, poses for a portrait in his bedroom at home in Tel Aviv last month. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
“Time is running out,” Alexander’s father, Adi, told the Bergen Record. “Every day in captivity is an eternity of suffering for him and every hostage, both physically and emotionally.”
Israel recently reached a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon but has continued to wage war against Hamas in Gaza with little end in sight. Netanyahu has said the fighting will only end when Hamas ceases to exist as an organization. The U.S. and several allies have attempted to broker an earlier ending.
“The key actor right now holding the decision on the ceasefire is Hamas,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday on “Face the Nation.”
