Aunt of Edan Alexander says ‘government has other considerations’ than bringing hostages home

The aunt of hostage soldier Edan Alexander says their family couldn’t celebrate the Seder last night after Hamas published a video of her nephew begging for his life. “There was no celebration. There was only his wail… We saw him underground, scared, injured, desperate, but sharp and clear in his message. He called out to us, to our people, to our leaders, to the American administration. He pleaded: Release me.”

“What is freedom when he is kept underground? Edan and the others can be brought home, but our government has other considerations. Everyone knows they can be brought home, but anyone who says so is quieted and distanced,” Iris Schwartz says at a Jerusalem rally near the home of Ron Dermer, the strategic affairs minister heading the hostage-ceasefire negotiations.

Iris Schwartz (foreground) and other relatives of Edan Alexander, who is held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, address protesters outside the Jerusalem home of Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, head of Israel’s negotiating team, demanding the government secure the release from Hamas captivity of all hostages, April 13, 2025. (Ran Melamed, Hostages and Families Forum)

She says the family has only met once with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and has not received a response to requests for a meeting with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a top confidant of the premier who is heading the hostage negotiating team.

She calls on Dermer to stop playing politics and to do his job, while saying the government is trying to scare the public that October 7 could happen again.

“We are living October 7 every day and every night, so stop trying to scare us and using that threat to quiet us,” she says.