Freed American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander will return to duty as a soldier with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), he announced Thursday.
Alexander was the last living American hostage in Gaza when he was released by Hamas in May.
The Times of Israel reported:
“I was held for 584 days. Those were the hardest days of my life. Days of struggle, pain and separation from my family. But tonight, I’m standing here free,” Alexander says at a Friends of the IDF event in the US last night.
“Next month, God willing, I will return to Israel. I will once again, put on the IDF uniform, and I will proudly serve alongside my brothers,” Alexander adds in a clip of the speech released by FIDF.
…
Alexander then switches to Hebrew and declares: “Until victory” before passionately knocking his podium with his hand two times.
Alexander was released as an apparent attempt by Hamas to appease President Donald Trump before his visit to the Middle East in the spring.
As Breitbart News reported at the time: “Alexander, who comes from Tenafly, New Jersey, immigrated to Israel and volunteered in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), where he was accepted into the elite Golani brigade. He was kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, terror attack.”
President Trump later welcomed him to the White House.
Israel is currently attempting to defeat and remove the last Hamas fighters in Gaza City, in northern Gaza. The fighting is expected to take several months, though the main portion of the remaining Hamas forces could be defeated in the next few weeks.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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