Hamas to Release US Hostage — For What?

Is Hamas about to throw in the towel? Or did Donald Trump just make life more complicated for Benjamin Netanyahu?

The good news — and it is great news — is that US citizen Edan Alexander will be freed from Hamas’ grip later today. The perhaps-good news is that Hamas cut the deal with the US as a way to demonstrate willingness to reach a cease-fire agreement with Israel. However, that raises a lot of questions, especially in how Hamas seems to have received nearly nothing but aid provided by the Israelis, and on Israel’s terms:

Hamas said Sunday it will release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, who has been held for over 550 days, as part of an effort to reach a ceasefire deal and resume humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.

The big picture: Alexander’s release is also thought to be a gesture by Hamas to President Trump as he visits the Middle East later this week, sources said.

So far, the Israelis say that the US read them into the talks and are cooperating with the exchange. However, they emphasized that Israel has made no concessions at all. It represents a resequencing for trust purposes of an offer that Israel has already accepted, Barak Ravid reports:

• The U.S. told Israel this move was expected to lead to negotiations for the release of the other hostages under Witkoff’s original proposal — which Israel has already accepted.
• Israel was preparing for the possibility that this move would materialize. Per Israeli policy, there will be no ceasefire while negotiations take place and Israel remains committed to defeating Hamas.

Israel has reduced the kinetic force of its operations since the agreement, but only to create a safe corridor for Alexander’s passage out of Gaza. Continued combat is still taking place in the Gaza City and Rafah areas:

Israeli forces have not been instructed to halt military activities in the Gaza Strip ahead of the expected release of US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander on Monday, but will make “adjustments” to allow safe passage of the captive out of the Strip, Channel 12 reported.

“Adjustments have been made for the release, but the army continues with normal operations,” a security source tells the network amid conflicting reports of a truce ahead of the release that was negotiated without Israel’s involvement.

The Kan public broadcaster also said that there was no ceasefire in Gaza but that military activity across the Strip had been limited to avoid harming the release process of Alexander.

All of this is well and good, but it’s difficult to see why Hamas would give up Alexander as a sweetener. The only leverage Hamas has against an all-out conquest by the IDF is its hostages, and the number has dwindled down to only a few. They cannot afford to let any loose without some sort of significant concession in return — heck, they’ve been offered significant concessions all along and have played the Hamas Hokey Pokey in their refusal to abide by their own demands. 

Perhaps we should wait until the exchange actually takes place before celebrating it. If it does take place, though, it has the potential to embarrass Benjamin Netanyahu by making it look as though Trump got at least one hostage freed when Netanyahu had given up. Netanyahu’s government is already taking flak over it:

Israel’s government was heavily criticized following the announcement of the deal struck between Hamas and the US, which would see the release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander on Monday. 

“I’m shocked and fearful for the fate of Israel, which under a terrible government has lost control over its destiny,” Yonatan Shamriz, brother of slain hostage Alon, wrote in an X/Twitter post. …

Opposition head Yair Lapid wrote on X/Twitter, “Reports of direct talks between Hamas and the United States are a disgraceful diplomatic failure of the Israeli government and its leader. 

“The hostages are ours, and the responsibility for bringing them home lies with the government.

Another opposition party leader was even more blunt:

The return of hostage Edan Alexander due to American intervention is welcome, says Democrats chair Yair Golan, but it also marks a “diplomatic, political, security and national failure” on the part of the government.

“The Israeli government received the announcement exactly as the public received it – from the media,” says Golan during his party’s weekly faction meeting.

“We congratulate the Alexander family and hope for the immediate return of all the hostages. But with the joy, it is necessary to tell the truth. It is not for nothing that Trump bypassed Netanyahu. Trump understood what millions of Israelis already know: Netanyahu has no intention of returning the abductees or ending the war. The only goal that motivates him is personal survival. Even at the cost of human life.”

One has to wonder whether Hamas played a little 3-D chess here with Alexander after all. By dealing directly with the Americans and cutting a deal, they had to know that a hostage release would at the very least make Netanyahu look worse by comparison. 

One also has to wonder what Trump’s team is thinking in this same regard. We have never officially dealt directly with Hamas before; Robert Malley got chased out of Barack Obama’s first campaign for having met with Hamas officials in the past, and his recent security woes seem connected to that kind of approach. It certainly appears that Witkoff and Adam Boehler cut the Israelis out of the loop, as multiple sources indicate in these reports. Why? Golan suggests that Trump may have become disenchanted with Netanyahu in recent weeks over the hostage issue:

Trump now understands that Netanyahu “is an obstacle to security and the release of the hostages,” he says, asserting that the government’s goal to occupy the Gaza Strip will lead to more deaths and “economic devastation.”

That’s coming from a Netanyahu foe, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Trump has talked about relocating the Gazans to build anew in the territory, and last week there were rumors that Trump might accept a mandate to govern Gaza. However, all of these can also be seen as ways in which Trump may be trying to disconnect Israel from Gaza, suggesting the possibility that he’s grown frustrated with Netanyahu. And let’s not forget that Trump has decided to skip Israel on his Middle East tour, a point that the Israelis certainly haven’t missed:

During his first major overseas trip this week, President Donald Trump is set to visit three countries in the Middle East — Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — without stopping in Jerusalem.

It’s not the first time he has bypassed Israel — or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

From embarking on nuclear talks with Iran to attempting hostage talks with Hamas without Israel’s knowledge, Trump has increasingly sidelined Netanyahu, stoking anxieties in a country long accustomed to being consulted by successive U.S. administrations.

Last week, Israelis believed they saw more cracks emerge between the “America First” president and Israel, after Trump said he had struck a truce with Yemen’s Houthi rebels that curbed the group’s attacks on U.S. ships — but did not cover Israel. Days later, reports emerged that Trump was considering offering Saudi Arabia access to civil nuclear technology without demanding that the kingdom normalize relations with Israel, a precondition that had been set by former president Joe Biden.

Curioser and curioser. Netanyahu may pine for the days of Biden at this rate.