Demonstrators carry placards throughout an anti-government protest demanding motion for the discharge of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza because the October 2023 assaults, in Tel Aviv on November 30, 2024, amid the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. Agence France-Presse
JERUSALEM — Hamas’s armed wing revealed a video Saturday of an American-Israeli hostage held in Gaza because the October 7, 2023 assault on Israel.
Within the video, whose date can’t be verified, Edan Alexander addresses US President-elect Donald Trump in English and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hebrew.
He calls on Israelis to place strain on the federal government to safe the discharge of the hostages seized on October 7.
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“This video has upset me, however past the hope it provides us, it reveals how unhealthy the state of affairs is for Edan and the opposite hostages and the way a lot they’re crying out and hoping to be saved now,” his mom, Yael Alexander, mentioned throughout a speech at a rally for the hostages in Tel Aviv Saturday night.
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Telling the gang she had spoken to Netanyahu, she added: “You need to hold your promise and free them. This state is powerful sufficient to finish the conflict and produce all of them again, together with my Edan.”
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In an announcement, Netanyahu’s workplace mentioned that in their name, the prime minister had “promised that Israel is decided to take each motion to carry them again residence, along with all the hostages held by the enemy”.
Netanyahu additionally described the video’s launch as “merciless psychological warfare”.
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In the USA, White Home Nationwide Safety Council spokesman Sean Savett referred to as the video “a merciless reminder of Hamas’s terror”.
“The conflict in Gaza would cease tomorrow and the struggling of Gazans would finish… if Hamas agreed to launch the hostages,” Savett mentioned in an announcement.
The Hostage Households Discussion board marketing campaign group, in the meantime, reiterated its requires the hostages’ launch.
“One 12 months after the primary and solely deal, it’s clear to everybody: returning the hostages is just doable by means of a deal,” it mentioned in an announcement.
Second hostage video
Militants seized 251 hostages in the course of the October 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel, a few of whom had been already lifeless.
Ninety-seven are nonetheless being held, together with 34 who’ve been confirmed lifeless however their our bodies stay in Gaza.
Throughout a quick truce between Israel and Hamas in November final 12 months, 80 Israelis held by militants in Gaza had been freed, in change for 240 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.
One other 25 hostages, principally Thai farm staff, had been additionally launched from captivity in Gaza.
Saturday’s video was launched by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and comes after Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group allied with Hamas, revealed clips of one other Israeli hostage, Sasha Trupanov, earlier this month.
The October 7 assault resulted in 1,207 deaths, principally civilians, in accordance with an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
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Israel’s retaliatory marketing campaign has killed 44,382 individuals in Gaza, in accordance with figures from the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry that the UN considers dependable.