Why Hamas released the last surviving American hostage in Gaza

The last surviving American hostage held by Hamas has been released, coinciding with the arrival today of President Trump in the Middle East. The timing could not be more significant. Previous attempts to negotiate the release of Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old Israeli-American soldier from an elite army unit, failed despite high-level talks in Qatar. However, Hamas, not a terror organisation known for its nuanced approach to diplomacy, clearly realised that with Trump in the region, the “gesture of good will” might pay additional dividends. Alexander was serving on the border with Gaza on 7 October 2023 when Hamas gunmen arrived in force and killed 1,200 Israelis and other nationals and seized 251 hostages. The young soldier was one of 59 hostages left to be released, only 24 of whom are thought to be still alive. Four other American hostages are believed to be dead. Alexander, born in Tel Aviv but raised in New Jersey,was held in Gaza for 583 days. Trump who is due to land in Saudia Arabia tomorrow as part of a Middle East trip that will include visits to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel, described the freedom for Alexander as “monumental” and said it was “a step taken in good faith”. The decision by Hamas to release the American hostage without preconditions – in other words, no consecutive release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel – has underlined how the dynamics of the Gaza war have been changing. There are multiple competing objectives: *Hamas wants the war to end without being comprehensively defeated. They want to survive to continue playing a leadership role in Gaza and to achieve that, they need all Israel Defence Forces (IDF) troops to withdraw from the territory. The holding of hostages has been key to this strategy. *Israel, under Benjamin Netanyahu, has now made it clear that the total defeat of Hamas and the occupation of the whole of the Gaza Strip is the priority, even more important than the release of the remaining hostages; and thousands of reservists have been mobilised to flood Gaza with troops. *The Trump administration has backed Israel to eliminate Hamas but the president has other objectives and needs the war to end and the hostages released, to achieve it. His arrival in Saudi Arabia is a reminder that Trump’s long-term vision is to persuade Riyadh to agree formal diplomatic relations with Israel as part of an expanded framework of peace and stability in the region. Saudi Arabia has shown willingness to consider this strategy but not until the war in Gaza comes to an end. The release of Edan Alexander is, therefore, a clever chess move by Hamas to gain favour with Trump as he lands in the region and to put pressure on Netanyahu to call off his plan, approved by his security cabinet, to launch a new all-enveloping offensive to seize the whole of the Gaza Strip. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s ubiquitous special envoy, slipped away from the Trump delegation to Saudi Arabia in order to fly direct to Israel to speak to Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has so far treated the freedom for Alexander as a bonus and a sign of desperation by Hamas rather than as an incentive to suspend or cancel his new offensive in Gaza. Netanyahu, of course, is under all sorts of pressure, political and diplomatic. Trump is getting almost as frustrated with the Israeli prime minister as he is with President Putin and the Russian leader’s ambivalent response to Washington’s demands for an end to the war in Ukraine. Domestically, Netanyahu is being accused of deliberately expanding and prolonging the war in Gaza in order to safeguard his own position. He still faces corruption charges which he has described as “an ocean of absurdity”. The release of Alxander has also intensified the demands of the hostage families, a potent political force in Israel, to focus far more effort on gaining the return of the other hostages, dead and alive. One of the principal players on the American side in recent negotiations with Hamas was Adam Boehler, Trump’s special envoy for hostage response. The other key members of the Trump administration involved were Steve Witkoff and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and temporary national security adviser. Most of the talks between the US and Hamas have been carried out indirectly, with Qatar acting as mediator. But earlier this year, Boehler held direct talks with Hamas in Doha, Qatar to try and secure Alexander’s freedom, as well as the bodies of the four dead Americans. But those talks faltered, partly because of Israeli objections. The last time there were hostage releases was in January and February during the two-month ceasefire. Thirty-eight hostages were freed in exchange for 1,500 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The ceasefire ended in March after a breakdown in talks to agree the next phases in a longer-term settlement which should have led to the release of the remaining 24 surviving hostages and 35 dead captives, held by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.