Edan Alexander gets tearful hometown welcome after 584 days in Hamas' clutches: ‘Their child is our child'
Thousands of cheering supporters lined the streets of Tenafly, New Jersey, to welcome hometown hero Edan Alexander, who at last returned safely to his family after enduring nearly 600 days of hell as a hostage of Hamas.
Alexander, wearing dark sunglasses and smiling from ear to ear, told The Post he was feeling 'great' and said it was good to be back as the SUV he rode in rolled down the tree-lined main drag.
People in the jubilant crowd held banners and signs reading 'Welcome home Edan,' and wrapped themselves in Israeli flags. Some jumped up and down and sang 'Am Yisrael Chai' — a Hebrew phrase translating to 'the people of Israel live.'
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6 Hundreds of friends, family and residents gathered downtown to watch the release of Edan Alexander, the last living U.S. citizen kidnapped by Hamas.
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6 Edan Alexander waving from a car window.
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The 21-year-old Israel Defense Forces staff sergeant was one of 251 Israelis taken captive by the terror group during the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, and the last living American hostage to be released.
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'We didn't know if he was alive for a long time and that was very hard to think about,' Gaia Hamani, 25, of nearby Alpine, whose brother went to preschool and high school with Alexander, told The Post.
6 Crowds await the arrival of Edan Alexander in Tenafly, NJ on Thursday afternoon.
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6 Crowd of people waving as the police motorcade carrying Edan Alexander passes by.
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'He left everything. He left the comfort of his home in New Jersey. He didn't have to go to the army. He volunteered to do that. It takes a lot of courage and strength to do that.'
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After learning of his disappearance, Hamani said she and her mother put photos of Alexander in their wallets as a constant memento.
'We prayed for him all the time. I always think of him in relation to my brother — to think what he went through, I can't imagine,' she said.
6 Edan Alexander, 19 (pictured).
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Alexander was severely tortured and often locked in a cage during his captivity, and frequently shackled at the hands and feet, deep within the terrorists' underground tunnel network, according to the Kan public broadcaster.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Alexander's freedom was achieved last month through Israel's military pressure in Gaza, as well as political pressure by President Trump.
6 People celebrate on the day Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, who was kidnapped during the October 7, 2023 attack, is released from captivity.
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Hamani said she burst into tears when she was driving to the homecoming celebration and saw kids waving Israeli flags.
Michal Fox, 51, of Englewood, a mother of four and a psychologist, said Alexander's safe return home was a bright, shining beacon of hope amid a long period of darkness for Jews both in Israel and the US.
'It's a great way for the community to come together. There are so many bad things that happened but we are going to celebrate him together,' she told The Post.
'It means to everyone that there is hope. There is resilience. He's the signature child, person for resilience and how we can get through things,' she added.
'I don't know them,' she said about Alexander's family, who were overjoyed at the news of his imminent release last month.
'I don't know anyone, but that's what the Jewish community does. We come together. Their child is our child.'
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