Hamas says it freed Israeli-American hostage, Israel says no ceasefire

Hamas said it had freed an Israeli-American hostage, Edan Alexander, as fighting paused in Gaza on Monday but there was no agreement on a wider truce or hostage release as a global hunger monitor warned of famine in the devastated enclave.

There was no immediate confirmation from Israel, the United States or the International Committee of the Red Cross that Edan Alexander had been released.

Fighting stopped at midday in Gaza after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would pause its operations to allow safe passage for the hostage release.

Palestinian resistance group Hamas said in a statement it had freed Alexander, the last American it held, and a source familiar with the matter said he had been handed to the Red Cross.

Hamas said it was releasing Alexander as a goodwill gesture to U.S. President Donald Trump, who is visiting the region this week. However, Netanyahu has said there would be no ceasefire and that plans to intensify military action in Gaza continued.

“Edan Alexander, American hostage thought dead, to be released by Hamas. Great news!” Trump wrote in capital letters on his social media platform on Monday. He later told reporters he expected Alexander to be released sometime on Monday.

The release, after four-way talks between Hamas, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, could open the way to freeing the remaining 59 hostages held in the Gaza Strip, 19 months after an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Qatar and Egypt said Alexander’s release was an encouraging step towards new truce talks. Israel will send a delegation to Qatar on Thursday to discuss a new proposal aimed at securing further hostage releases, Netanyahu’s office said.

Netanyahu has insisted that Israel’s planning for an expanded military campaign in Gaza will continue, as one of his coalition partners, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said the war on Hamas must not end and aid should not be let in to the enclave.

“Israel has not committed to a ceasefire of any kind,” Netanyahu’s office said, adding that military pressure had forced Hamas into the release.

Gaza health authorities said an Israeli strike killed at least 15 people sheltering at a school on Monday before fighting paused. Israel’s military said it had targeted Hamas fighters there who were preparing an attack.

The global hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported on Monday that half a million people in the Gaza Strip face starvation and there is a critical risk of famine by September.

Donald Trump is due to visit Gulf states on a trip that does not include a stop in Israel but special envoy Steve Witkoff, who helped arrange the release, is expected in Israel on Monday, two Israeli officials said.

Alexander’s family thanked Trump and Witkoff, saying in a statement that they hoped the decision would open the way for the release of the other remaining hostages.

“We urge the Israeli government and the negotiating teams: please don’t stop,” they said.

U.S. officials have tried to calm fears in Israel of a growing distance between Israel and Trump who last week announced an end to U.S. bombing of Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have continued to fire missiles at Israel.

Israel’s government has faced criticism over the deal to release Alexander, which laid bare the priority given to hostages able to rely on the support of a foreign government.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among 21 hostages still believed to be alive, said Netanyahu was choosing his political survival over ending the war.

Addressing Trump in a statement she read with other hostage families, she said: “The Israeli people are behind you. End this war. Bring them all home”.

Netanyahu, who was due to testify in the latest session of his trial on corruption charges that he denies, has faced pressure from hardliners in his cabinet not to end the war.

Following a ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in Gaza for two months and allowed the exchange of 38 hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails, Israel resumed its military campaign in the enclave in March.

Since then, it has extended its control of the territory, clearing around a third as what it has described as a “security zone” and blocked off the entry of aid into Gaza, leaving the 2 million population increasingly short of food.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee last week outlined plans for a new system of aid deliveries by private contractors, but many details are unclear, including on funding.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday that humanitarian aid in Gaza needed to resume immediately. Herzog said the new aid mechanism would reach civilians, not Hamas, and urged the international community to help implement it.