| Given Hamas’s bold and repeated commitment to repeat the 10/7 attack, they should be grateful Israel paused the current clearance operation leading up to the release Hamas negotiated with the Trump team. PM Netanyahu keeps telling the world that he no longer will stop until Hamas is disarmed and ejected from Gaza, full stop. |
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
, dismissing diplomatic solutions as there was no deal on a wider truce or hostage releases.
Netanyahu said Alexander's release came thanks to Israel's military pressure in Gaza and political pressure by Trump.
The Israeli leader said he spoke with Trump on Monday and the U.S. president expressed commitment to Israel, according to a statement by Netanyahu's office.
Netanyahu has said there will be no ceasefire and that plans to intensify military action in Gaza continued.
Fighting halted at midday in Gaza after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would pause its operations to allow for the hostage release.
Witnesses reported Israeli tank shelling on eastern Gaza City after the handover. Local health authorities said a woman was killed and several other people maimed when tank shells hit a school housing displaced families in the Tuffah neighborhood.
Humanitarian monitors warn of looming famine, with food shortages worsening across the enclave.
| Open the Hamas warehouses, don’t start a war that Allah does not want you to win — it isn’t hard. Remember how comfortable life was on 10/6/2023? |
US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander freed from Hamas captivity, reunites with family
[IsraelTimes] Following direct talks with US, terror group releases 21-year-old in overture as Trump to start Mideast trip.
American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander reunited with his parents in Israel on Monday, after being released by Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...in a gesture of goodwill to the United States, as President Donald Trump
...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party...
was set to embark on a visit to the Middle East.
Alexander, the last living hostage with American citizenship, was freed following direct talks between the US and Hamas in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
that were aimed at securing his release. The negotiations sidelined Israeli officials, who were updated only after the deal was struck.
After arriving in Israel, the 21-year-old lone soldier embraced his teary-eyed parents, Yael and Adi, and his siblings, at an army facility near the Gazoo border community of Re’im, following 584 days in Hamas captivity.
"Look how massive this kid is!" Alexander shouted, as he hugged his little brother.
Hamas handed Alexander over to Red Thingy officials in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis at around 6 p.m., without staging a propaganda ceremony, as was typical of the terror group in past hostage releases.
In the first photo taken after his release, Alexander was seen standing unassisted while flanked by a Red Thingy worker and three armed, masked Hamas terrorists. He was dressed in a baseball cap and black Adidas t-shirt, as opposed to the mock army uniforms other hostage soldiers were made to wear.
According to Channel 12 News, a Red Thingy official said Alexander’s "physical condition was poor, but he is smiling," and that he required assistance getting into the car.
Alexander told soldiers who received him in the Strip that Hamas subjected him to harsh torture for weeks on end and kept him in a cage over a long period of time with his hands and feet bound, the Kan public broadcaster reported. He was apparently held in a Hamas tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip, alongside other hostages.
Once in the hands of the Red Thingy, he was handed over to IDF special forces stationed in the enclave, who brought him back over the border to a facility at the Re’im base in Israel, where his parents anxiously awaited him. Alexander’s mother flew with relatives from the US to Israel with American hostage envoy Adam Boehler, leaving on Sunday night in order to arrive in time for her son’s release. His father arrived separately on Monday evening.
Accompanying his family Monday evening were US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hostage point-man Gal Hirsch. Waiting at the base, Edan’s mother Yael Alexander elatedly spoke by phone with her son, once he was released by Hamas.
"You’re out, my love, you’re out!" she exclaimed in a video shared by the Prime Minister’s Office. "You are strong. You are safe. You are home. We’ll see each other soon. I love you."
On his way to the hospital by helicopter from the Re’im base, Alexander posed for a photo while holding a sign that read: "Thank you President Trump! The people of Israel live! Let’s go Golani 51," referring to his army battalion.
Alexander, a dual citizen who grew up in New Jersey, was serving in the IDF’s Golani Brigade at the time of his abduction. Hamas kidnapped him from his base near the Gaza border community of Nirim, known as the White House post, during its October 7 onslaught.
Hamas took 19 male soldiers hostage — not all of them on duty — and seven female surveillance soldiers, the latter of whom have all since been returned to Israel. Five were released in a deal with Hamas, one was rescued, and the body of one was recovered by troops.
Hamas and other terror groups are holding 58 hostages, 35 of whom have been confirmed dead — 32 Israelis, and three foreigners.
Three or four of the dead are American. I guess Hamas is holding them for future negotiations with the Trump team.
While Israel’s official estimate of the number of living hostages stands at 23, Netanyahu announced last week that there was grave doubt about the fates of three hostages — Israeli Tamir Nimrodi, Bipin Joshi, and Pinta Nattapong, from Nepal and Thailand, respectively.Asked at a presser whether Monday’s release marked a step toward a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Trump said that "we hope that we’re going to have other hostages released."
DOHA TALKS
In light of Alexander’s release and after speaking with Trump, Netanyahu announced Monday that he would send a delegation to Doha on Tuesday to try to negotiate another temporary hostage release and ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu discussed in an earlier meeting with Witkoff and Huckabee "the recent effort to implement the hostage release framework presented by Witkoff," ahead of the IDF’s potential expanded ground campaign in Gaza, his office said in a statement.
"To that end, the prime minister instructed that a negotiation delegation be sent to Doha tomorrow," his office continued, clarifying that "the negotiations will take place only under fire," with the military campaign against Hamas ongoing.
Netanyahu later Monday evening claimed in a video that Alexander’s return was "achieved thanks to our military pressure and the diplomatic pressure applied by President Trump," calling it "a winning combination."
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..always the voice of sweet reason...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans...