OAN Staff James Meyers
7:27 AM – Friday, March 14, 2025
Terrorist group Hamas said Friday that they would be releasing the last living American hostage Edan Alexander.
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The 21-year-old New Jersey native will be the only living hostage in the next release, which will include the bodies of four dual-nationals who died in captivity, the terror group said, as negotiations have led to talks of the second phase of a ceasefire deal with Israel.
However, it wasn’t immediately clear when the transfer would take place, or which parties participated in negotiating the deal.
Alexander, who enlisted in the Israeli army, was 19 when he was taken from his base in southern Israel during the October 7th terrorist attack that sparked the war.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been calling for his release as a “top priority.”
“Edan Alexander is very important to us — as all the hostages are — but Edan Alexander is an American, and he’s injured, so he’s a top priority for us,” Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said just last week.
In recent days, meetings between Hamas leaders and U.S. hostage negotiator Adam Boehler were focused on getting him released from captivity.
This also comes after the White House made a surprise announcement last week, saying that American officials had been engaging in “ongoing talks and discussions” with Hamas officials, which went away from a long-standing U.S. policy of not directly engaging with terrorists.
Nevertheless, Hamas’ Friday announcement comes as talks have continued in Qatar to try to get to the next stage of the ceasefire.
The U.S., Qatar, and Egypt have been trying to reconcile differences between the terrorist group and the Jewish State to restart negotiations in order to release the remaining hostages that are being held in Hamas captivity and deliver aid into the war-battered area.
On March 2nd, Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza as a standoff over the truce escalated, with Hamas calling on mediators to intervene.
Since January 19th, the fighting in Gaza has been put on pause under the first phase of the three-phase ceasefire deal.
Currently, Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
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