Last American hostage in Gaza is reunited with parents: ‘We have never lost hope’

Edan Alexander was held underground for 583 days in the tunnels under Gaza. After he was released on Monday evening, he stood in an ordinary white room in an Israeli military base when his mother entered. They embraced and cried with joy and cried.

Adi Alexander, Edan’s father, wanted to participate in their embrace. Instead, he waited through the hallway. For more than a year and a half, Mr. Alexander had trusted in discipline to survive the test of the conquest of his son.

Of the 251 people, Hamas caught during his attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, 12 had American citizenship. Mr. Alexander’s 20-year-old son was the last of the 12 who was still hostage. Israeli authorities estimate that 59 hostages remain. Dozens, including four American citizens, are supposed to be dead.

“We never lost hope,” said Mr. Alexander on Wednesday, during an interview after the release of his son. “I couldn’t allow myself to think in a different way.”

Now, with his son practically right for him, Mr. Alexander said he stealed himself again.

“I can’t cry in the front in the front,” said Mr. Alexander. So he paused a few minutes to have his wife and the eldest son cuddle through the hallway. “I have to stay strong.”

Edan Alexander grew up in New Jersey, where he was a Steratleet in the Tenafly High School swimming team. In 2022, during his last year, he joined Garin Tzabar, a program run by the Israel Scouts that prepares young people from all over the world to join the Israel defense troops.

He was assigned to the infantry and he arrived at a small military outpost at about two miles from the Gaza limit in September 2023, weeks before the attacks of 7 October.

His time as a prisoner had him physically changed.

At one point during Edan’s imprisonment, a tunnel collapsed, his father said, injuring Edan’s shoulder. He became lean from a diet of pita bread, rice, brown beans and black coffee, and his skin grew faded due to lack of sunshine and covered with red stripes.

“His whole body has bedbug bites,” said Mr. Alexander. “His skin is in terrible condition.”

In the early days his abductors held a bag over his head, Mr. Alexander said. Bombs falling through the Israeli army shake the tunnels ‘like an earthquake’. Edan was fascinated, beaten and questioned, his father said. But the interrogations were meaningless, because Edan was only a soldier in the Israeli defense forces at the time of his conquest.

“There was nothing to question him,” said Mr. Alexander. “They knew much better about the IDF scheme than him.”

The circumstances improved slowly and intermittently. The tunnels were initially busy. As more hostages were released or died, Mr. Alexander said, Edan had more room. Shortly after a ceasefire was declared mid-January this year, Edan got beef and lamb to eat. After Donald J. Trump was inaugurated, Edan was moved to another tunnel with access to a shower and television, Mr. Alexander said.

After all this time, the spirit of Edan seems unchanged, his father said. During their reunion on the military basis, that was recorded in a video That was later released by the IDF, Edan cried when he hugged his mother and then laughed when Mika, his sister and Roy, his younger brother, entered the room.

“He was this Goofy, funny guy,” he said to the army, said Mr. Alexander. “He’s still funny. I don’t think he’s a different person. He’s just tired.”

After his family had endured so many months of waiting and fear, Mr. Alexander’s release quickly came together.

On Sunday at 12:50 pm Mr. Alexander at home in Tenafly, NJ, when he looked at his phone. He had missed eight phone calls from Steve Witkoff, the special envoy from President Trump to the Middle East. When they finally made contact, Mr. Witkoff told Mr. Alexander to stand next to his wife and put the phone on the speaker. Then he delivered the news: within about 10 minutes Hamas would announce Edan’s release. The family turned on the television in their living room. The news arrived exactly on time.

“We were absolutely crazy,” said Mr. Alexander.

Mr. and Mrs. Alexander flew to Israel that afternoon and by Monday evening they were reunited with Edan on the military base of Re’IM. From there they were transported by helicopter to the Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv, where, Mr. Alexander said, a whole floor was made available to give Edan and his family sources.

“We have the entire floor!” Mr Alexander said. “The whole family is here. It’s great.”

Shortly after they arrived, Edan and Mika took the elevator to the roof terrace. He opened a bottle of Corona and posed for a selfie. By Wednesday, Edan was on his phone, facetimating with his cousins, his friends of high school and his girlfriend.

“He regularly does 21-year-old things,” said Mr. Alexander.