Trump: Fewer than 24 hostages are alive; we don’t know how Edan Alexander is doing
US president echoes comments made by Sara Netanyahu, which infuriated families as they were not updated before reported divulgence of partially classified intel
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US President Donald Trump revealed Thursday that he recently learned that fewer than 24 hostages are alive in Gaza.
“Out of 59, you had 24 that were living, and now I understand that it’s not even that number,” Trump said during a National Day of Prayer event at the White House.
For months, Israel has said it believes 24 of the 59 hostages are alive, though earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara interrupted him during a public event to say that the number was lower than the official figure. The prime minister had said there were “up to 24” living hostages.
The comment by Sara Netanyahu — which sparked outrage among hostage families — was reportedly based on partial, classified information that was recently relayed to cabinet ministers.
During the recent US presidential campaign and into the first weeks of his administration, Trump repeatedly claimed that most of the hostages in Gaza were dead. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said earlier this week that he worked to convince Trump that this was not the case. President Isaac Herzog reportedly worked to do the same thing late last year.
It was not clear if Trump’s comments and those made days earlier by Sara Netanyahu were based on the same recent intelligence.
Trump’s remarks came while he gave a shoutout to the parents of Edan Alexander, the last American-Israeli hostage believed to be alive, who were in attendance at the event on the White House lawn.
“We don’t know how he’s doing, really…. We think we know, and hopefully [it’s] positive,” Trump said of the 21-year-old lone soldier who was taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, cross-border attack.
“Two months ago, we were pretty sure. It looked like he was getting out. But they’ve toughened up a little bit. And it’s a terrible thing, I know, what you’re going through,” Trump said to Yael and Adi Alexander, Edan’s parents.
It was not immediately clear what Trump was referring to. Roughly two months ago, US hostage envoy Adam Boehler held a series of unprecedented and secret meetings with Hamas officials, seeking to directly negotiate for the release of Alexander and the bodies of four other American hostages for the first time.
Israel was not aware of those talks until after the fact and fumed over Boehler’s decision to negotiate on its behalf. The US stopped the negotiations after Israel leaked them to the press, exposing Boehler to criticism from some congressional Republicans, a US official and an Israeli official said at the time.
After the leak, Hamas came back and said it was prepared to accept Boehler’s offer, but by then, the US had returned to the original track of talks through Qatari and Egyptian mediators and demanded the terror group accept a bridging proposal for a ceasefire extension that Hamas refused.
Pushing back on the Israeli government’s conduct, Alexander’s parents and the families of other American hostages have called for Boehler to resume his direct talks with Hamas, but that has yet to happen.
On April 12, Hamas published a propaganda video in which a gaunt and emotional Alexander can be seen pleading for his release and for Trump’s intervention in securing it.
Three days later, though, as talks between Israel and Hamas for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal hit another impasse, Hamas announced it had lost contact with Alexander’s captors following an Israeli strike in the area. The terror group has lied about the condition of hostages before but there have also been a number of Israeli captives who have been killed in IDF strikes. Hamas has yet to publicize an update on Alexander’s condition.
“We’re working very, very hard to save your son,” Trump said on Thursday. “We have news coming out — both good and bad.”
טראמפ: לא יודעים מה מצבו של עידן אלכסנדר, חשבנו שישוחרר אך חמאס הקשיח עמדות@itamargalit pic.twitter.com/ue4bOZ4CLh
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 1, 2025
“Things are heating up there,” he added.
The president went on to reiterate comments he regularly makes about his interactions with released hostages, including what they shared with him about the horrific conditions in which they were held, and how the parents of slain hostages are just as desperate to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones as the parents of captives who are still alive.
Alexander’s parents were among a group of parents of American-Israeli hostages who held a briefing with reporters on Wednesday in Washington, during which they expressed their hope that Trump’s upcoming visit to the Middle East as an opportunity to secure the release of their loved ones.
Trump is slated to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates from May 13 to May 16. The White House is not currently planning for the president to make a stop in Israel during what will be his first trip to the Middle East since his reelection.
Alexander is one of five Americans still held by Hamas, but the only one who is still believed alive. The terror group is also holding the bodies of 19-year-old Itay Chen, 21-year-old Omer Neutra, 70-year-old Judith Weinstein Haggai and 73-year-old Gadi Haggai.
Trump helped secure the release of 33 hostages, including two Americans, through a hostage deal that was inked the day before he entered office in January. But that deal fell apart after its first phase, with Israel resuming the war on March 18 after Hamas refused its demands to rework the terms of the agreement.
The US has backed Israel’s decision to resume fighting, but last week, Trump said he had urged Netanyahu to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, in a sign that Washington was growing uneasy about Israel’s prosecution of the war.
Still, Gaza appears to have fallen on the Trump administration’s priority list, with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and other officials busy trying to strike deals to curb Iran’s nuclear program and end the war in Ukraine, among other issues.
Talks have been at an impasse for the past two months, with Israel only willing to agree to an interim deal that releases some of the hostages in exchange for another temporary ceasefire that allows it to resume fighting, while Hamas has said it is prepared to release all remaining 59 hostages at once in order to bring about a permanent end to the war.
Netanyahu has refused this exchange, arguing that it would leave Hamas in power and make possible another invasion of Israel from Gaza. In doing so, though, he appears to be breaking with the majority of Israelis, whom successive polls have shown support ending the war in exchange for the release of all the hostages.
The Times of Israel Community.