Hamas to release US-Israeli hostage and remains of four other dual nationals

14 Mar 2025, 14:11 by AFP, https://www.thejournal.ie/author/afp/ · TheJournal.ie

HAMAS HAS SAID it is ready to free an Israeli-American hostage and the remains of four other dual nationals, after the militant group and Israel gathered for indirect Gaza ceasefire talks.

The first phase of a truce between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip ended on 1 March without agreement on the next stages. A senior Hamas official said on Tuesday fresh talks had begun in Doha, with Israel also sending negotiators.

“Yesterday, a Hamas leadership delegation received a proposal from the brotherly mediators to resume negotiations,” the group said in a statement.

It added that its reply “included its agreement to release the Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, who holds American citizenship, along with the remains of four others holding dual citizenship”.

A Hamas official, Taher al-Nounou, told AFP that “the five individuals that Hamas agreed to release under the new American proposal are Israeli prisoners holding American nationality.”

The militant group did not immediately specify when the release of Edan Alexander and the four bodies would occur, and other countries party to the agreement did not immediately confirm the Hamas statement.

Alexander was 19 when he was taken from his base on the border with Gaza in southern Israel during the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 that sparked the current conflict.

During the initial six-week phase of the ceasefire, militants released 33 hostages, including eight who were deceased, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons.

Militants also released five Thai captives outside the accord.

Israel has said it wants to extend the first phase of the ceasefire, but Hamas has insisted on talks for the second phase of the deal which the United States, Qatar and Egypt had mediated and took effect on 19 January.

Israel’s military on Thursday said it carried out an airstrike targeting militants who were planting explosives in central Gaza, the latest such strike.

Israel halted aid flows into Gaza 13 days ago over the truce impasse. At the weekend, it also cut off the electricity supply, which largely halted output from Gaza’s main water desalination plant.

On Thursday, Hamas renewed a demand for Israeli troops to withdraw from south Gaza, accusing Israel of seeking to breach the ceasefire in talks on the next phase of the accord.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP that Israeli forces should have pulled out of a strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border under the first phase.

Hamas has accused Israel of keeping troops in the strategic Philadelphi corridor. Israel has insisted it needs to maintain control of the corridor to prevent weapons smuggling into the Palestinian territory from Egypt.

Former US president Joe Biden had outlined a second phase involving the release of remaining living hostages, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces left in Gaza, and establishment of a permanent ceasefire.

Sticking points

Qassem indicated the corridor had become one of the sticking points at the Doha talks.

“Reports indicate new proposals are being presented aimed at circumventing the Gaza agreement,” he told AFP.

“Meetings are continuing with mediators in Doha. We adhere to what was agreed upon and to entering into the second phase.”

But he insisted Israel must also fulfil its obligations “withdrawing from the entire Gaza Strip” and “begin the withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor” for any second phase deal to end the current conflict, that began after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack.