Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. I'm Sean Lay. Now the news today that Edan

Alexander, 21-year-old born in Tel Avivap but raised in New Jersey, had been released by Hamas, was a big

surprise. The last Israeli hostages to be released by their captors were freed

on the 22nd of February. Since then the ceasefire broke up between Israel and Hamas has collapsed

and Israel has resumed its military operations in Gaza. So today's dramatic news was unexpected

and also hard to understand. Mr. Alexander had been seized when he was at the border

during Hamas' attack on Israel on the 7th of October, 2023.

Speaking ahead of his release, his grandmother, Varda Ben Baruch,

said she was looking forward to seeing Edan again.

I want to thank President Trump, Mr. Witkoff.

I want to thank President Trump, Mr. Wickkoff, and Adam Boler for everything they did for Edan's release. And, God willing, they will continue to work for all the hostages who are still

there in Gaza. We want to see all of them, every last one,

return to the land of Israel. Well, unlike previous releases, when Hamas exchanged hostages

for Palestinians held prisoner by Israel, Mr. Alexander was freed after four-way talks between Hamas, Egypt, Qatar and the United States.

Earlier I spoke to the BBC's Middle East correspondent Uga Boshaga in Tel Aviv.

Yeah, it was something very different from the releases that happened earlier this year that angered many here in Israel who felt the hostages would be humiliated

by Hamas. There were no cameras, no crowds, no public event. It was a much more private

process. So he was handed over to the Red Cross and we saw a picture of him with masked

Hamas fighters and a representative of the Red Cross.

Then Idan Alexander was transferred to the Israeli military before he was finally taken back to Israel.

And I spent a day in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, which has become one of the

symbols of this hostage crisis. There was a crowd gathered, people celebrated with every

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