Defense and Security
After 584 days in captivity, he is the first male soldier in the Israel Defense Forces freed since being taken in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Hamas terrorist group announced on Sunday night that it would free Edan Alexander, 21, as part of efforts to achieve a ceasefire.
The 25-year-old North Carolina man got four months of probation, 40 hours of community service and will have to pay $525 in restitution.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer was one of 50 congressmen who urged the U.S. president to prioritize the release of the American hostage Edan Alexander.
“We really need to implement what Trump told us to do,” Israel’s national security minister tells JNS.
“Humanitarian aid should not have been allowed to enter since the start of the war, as long as our hostages are rotting in Hamas’s tunnels,” he told JNS.
Last year, the IDF constructed a security fence surrounding the new road that bypasses the central Samaria terrorist hotspot of Huwara.
“Antisemitism. Throat-slitting gestures. From our perspective that was a red line,” said Young, a member of the Israeli delegation to the contest.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the decision was part of his “normalization and de facto sovereignty revolution” in Judea and Samaria.
“I’ll put my head on his shoulder and tell him, ‘How wonderful, how wonderful that we’re together again,’” says Yael Alexander, whose 21-year-old son Edan is set to be released by Hamas after more than a year in captivity.
Over 1,000 knives, axes, and clubs were seized from a home, hidden in packaged electrical appliances.
“This was a step taken in good faith towards the United States and the efforts of the mediators—Qatar and Egypt—to put an end to this very brutal war,” wrote the American president.
