Gaza City:Hamas’s armed wing released a video on Saturday showing an Israeli-American hostage alive, in which he criticises the Israeli government for failing to secure his release.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum identified him as Edan Alexander, a soldier in an elite infantry unit on the Gaza border when he was abducted by Palestinian militants during their October 7 attack on Israel.
AFP was unable to determine when the video was filmed.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, published the more than three-minute clip showing the hostage seated in a small, enclosed space.
In the video, he says he wants to return home to celebrate the holidays.
Israel is currently marking Passover, the holiday that commemorates the biblical liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Alexander, who turned 21 in captivity, was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in the US state of New Jersey, returning to Israel after high school to join the army.
“As we begin the holiday evening in the USA, our family in Israel is preparing to sit around the Seder table,” Alexander’s family said in a statement released by the forum.
“Our Edan, a lone soldier who immigrated to Israel and enlisted in the Golani Brigade to defend the country and its citizens, is still being held captive by Hamas.
“When you sit down to mark Passover, remember that this is not a holiday of freedom as long as Edan and the other hostages are not home,” the family added.
The family did not authorise media to broadcast the footage.
Alexander appears to be speaking under duress in the video, making frequent hand gestures as he criticises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for failing to secure his release.
The video was released hours after Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel’s military had seized the new Morag axis between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.
Katz also outlined plans to expand Israel’s ongoing offensive across much of the Gaza Strip.
In a separate statement earlier Saturday, Hamas said Israel’s Gaza operations endangered not only Palestinian civilians but also the remaining hostages.
The offensive not only “kills defenceless civilians but also makes the fate of the occupation’s prisoners (hostages) uncertain”, Hamas said.
During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian militants took 251 hostages.
Fifty-eight hostages remain in captivity, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.
During a recent ceasefire that ended on March 18 when Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza, militants released 33 hostages, among them eight bodies.