The White Home has condemned a Hamas-issued propaganda video of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander urging president-elect Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a deal to free remaining hostages in Gaza, calling it “a merciless reminder of Hamas’s terror towards residents of a number of international locations, together with our personal.”
Within the video, titled “Quickly … Time is operating out” and posted Saturday on the Telegram channel of Hamas’s army wing, the Qassam Brigades, Alexander calls on Trump to make use of his “affect and the total energy of the US to barter for our freedom.”
Alexander, who has been held by Hamas since 7 October 2023, seems to be underneath duress as he states that he has been held captive for greater than 420 days.
“Please don’t make the error Biden has been doing,” he says, including that he doesn’t wish to “find yourself useless like my fellow USA citizen, Hersh”, a reference to American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg Polin, who was killed whereas being held by Hamas in August.
Alexander’s household licensed the discharge of the video, which incorporates footage of the younger captive overlaying his face together with his arms and crying.
In an announcement, nationwide safety council spokesperson Sean Savett mentioned the battle 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.”
The White Home assertion continued {that a} hostage deal was presently “on the desk” and that Biden and the US would “proceed to work across the clock to safe the discharge of our residents, together with by means of diplomatic efforts and by rising strain on Hamas terrorists by means of sanctions, legislation enforcement actions, and different measures.”
Final week, President Biden mentioned there existed “a vital alternative to conclude the deal to launch the hostages, cease the battle, and surge humanitarian help into Gaza.”
However the video is directed squarely on the president-elect, who held an image of Alexander whereas assembly together with his mother and father Adi and Yael in New York on the one 12 months anniversary of the Hamas assault.
At an occasion in Florida later that day, Trump referred to as the assault “one of many darkest days in all of historical past” earlier than pivoting in charge then presidential rival and vice-president Kamala Harris and Biden for the “weak spot” he mentioned gave Hamas confidence to launch the assault.
Yael Alexander instructed rallygoers at “Hostage Sq.” in Tel Aviv on Saturday that she was “shaken by the video” and had spoken with Netanyahu.
She mentioned the Israeli chief had “strengthened me and guaranteed me that now, after the deal in Lebanon, the circumstances are ripe to launch you and produce you residence”, referring to a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that went into impact on Wednesday.
Within the video, Alexander, who grew up in New Jersey and joined the Israeli military after highschool, addresses prime minister Netanyahu in Hebrew. “I heard you chatting with the individuals of Israel on the information, and I’m very disillusioned. I heard that you’ll give $5m to whoever brings us again alive. The prime minister is meant to guard his residents and troopers, and also you uncared for us.”
Alexander continues: “The worry is at its peak, and we’re dying a thousand instances day-after-day that passes, and nobody feels for us. The individuals of Israel: Don’t neglect us. We wish to return residence with a full thoughts”.
In an announcement launched on Saturday, the Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board referred to as the video “surprising” and it had supplied “particular proof that regardless of all of the rumors there reside hostages, and they’re struggling drastically”.
“One 12 months after the primary and solely deal, it’s clear to everybody: returning the hostages is just potential by means of a deal. After greater than 420 days of steady abuse, hunger, and darkness, the urgency of bringing residence all 101 hostages can’t be overstated,” the assertion reads.
Netanyahu’s workplace mentioned the Israeli prime minister had spoken with Alexander’s household and “actually feels the anguish that Edan, the hostages, and their households are going by means of.”
It added that the prime minister reassured the household that “Israel is working resolutely and in each manner potential” to carry in regards to the launch of the hostages “who’re within the arms of the enemy.”
Individually, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy mentioned on X that he joined with the Alexander household “in urging each the Biden Administration and incoming Trump Administration to do all the things potential to shortly facilitate an settlement that brings him residence protected.”
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