Yael Alexander, the mother of Edan Alexander, a soldier taken hostage by Hamas terrorists from the Gaza border on October 7, 2023, sank down on her parents’ living room couch, as she read a news report on her phone.

“Wow, he mentioned Edan by name,” said Alexander, repeating a CBS News article quoting US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

When asked about the release of the Tenafly, New Jersey native, believed to be the last living American hostage, Witkoff said to CBS, “He’s front and center. We’re going to be successful in getting Edan home.”

It is comments like these that keep Yael Alexander in a constant state of adrenaline rush.

“It’s like a rollercoaster,” she told The Times of Israel. “I feel like I’m on the edge of falling since October 7. I live on 100% adrenaline all day, but this is how you feel when your son is in captivity in Hamas tunnels and you need to get him out, and fast.”

Every day since that day has held this same sense of urgency for Yael and Adi Alexander, who were born and raised in Israel and have lived with their three children in the US for the last 20 years.

This week, however, carries an additional layer of urgency, said Alexander, as the first phase of the current hostage deal with Hamas is drawing to a close, and the second phase, which would hopefully include Edan Alexander and the other 62 remaining hostages, has not yet been negotiated.

“It’s a very critical moment,” said Alexander, a custom cake designer and artist who has not worked since her son was taken hostage. “This fight is bigger than anything I could have ever imagined.”

She described a sense of action with US President Donald Trump that she felt was not present in the previous administration.

“Trump tweets, he speaks about it, he feels passionate about it and wants it,” said Alexander. “Maybe he speaks the Middle Eastern language?”

For the last 16-plus months, Alexander and her husband have commuted between Israel, their Tenafly home, and Washington, DC, for a combination of meetings, interviews, and rallies. Only their youngest, Roy, now 13, is still living at home. His older sister, Mika, is away at college.

“It’s very tough to fight for your beautiful boy and to have a normal family life,” said Alexander. “We are all over the place and I’m always feeling that it’s not enough.”

When Alexander and her husband are in Israel, they lean on their family, including Yael’s parents and four siblings, three of whom live in the same Tel Aviv building where Yael’s father has lived for his entire life.

Varda Ben Baruch, Yael’s mother, is present at every Hostages Square rally and often at Shift 101 sit-ins, a now-familiar sight in her fedora and bright lipstick, a poster of Edan held high.

“I’m the matriarch of the family,” said Ben Baruch in her living room, which is decorated with the many bronze sculptures she has crafted over the years, an impressive collection of silver Judaica, and portraits of Edan, who has his own room at his grandparents’ apartment. “I have to save my strength for everyone, for my husband, for my kids, for my grandkids, and for Edan.”

Ben Baruch said that she and her husband were like “secondary parents” to Edan when he became a soldier, doing his laundry, and tending his cuts and bruises as he underwent basic training.

She said she was shocked when the government did not bring home all the hostages in the days after October 7.

“I was sure that after five days, the government would bring us our kids,” said Ben Baruch. “The war didn’t start right away,” she said, referring to the Gaza ground operation.

“I’m not angry,” said Ben Baruch. “I ask and I demand, because anger won’t do anything. It’s abuse to humans to have hostages there. They have to think about the families and the hostages.”

Her daughter, Yael, the third of her five children, happened to be in Israel on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked the Gaza border communities and towns. The Alexanders had planned to be in Israel about once a month while Edan was serving in the army.

Edan had been home in the US for August 2023, and once the Jewish high holidays had passed, Yael Alexander traveled to Israel to spend part of Sukkot with Edan and the rest of her family, before he went back to his base for the end of the holiday.

She spoke to him at 7 a.m. on October 7, soon after the Hamas attack began, and minutes before he was taken captive by Hamas terrorists. The rest of the Alexanders — Adi, Mika and Roy — flew to Israel to join her, and it was on October 12 that the family found out that Edan was taken hostage.

“When they arrived on October 9, I cried like a little girl,” she said. “I didn’t have answers because we didn’t know where Edan was. I still see that moment in my life, I had never cried like that. Maybe I’ll cry like that when I see Edan.”

The family has received several signs of life of Edan, from hostages who were freed in November 2023 and had met him, handcuffed in the tunnels. He told them he was an American-Israeli soldier, was hugged by one hostage and was given water to drink with the help of another hostage.

In November 2024, Alexander was seen again in a Hamas propaganda video, his face thin and wan, with dark circles under his eyes.

Yael Alexander was in Israel that week, wanting to be geographically closer to Edan on his favorite American holiday, Thanksgiving.

The American-Israeli soldier is now the last known American hostage taken by Hamas terrorists on October 7 who is believed to still be alive.

In the first months after October 7, there were eight dual citizen American-Israelis. whose family members formed a group.

It consisted of the Alexanders, along with Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin who was killed in captivity at the end of August; Orna and Ronen Neutra, the parents of Omer Neutra, another dual citizen soldier who was eventually discovered to have been killed on October 7 and his body taken captive; Iris Weinstein Haggai, daughter of Judy Weinstein Haggai, an American-Canadian-Israeli who was killed with her husband, Gadi Haggai, on October 7 and their bodies taken captive; and Ruby and Hagit Chen, the parents of Itay Chen, an Israeli soldier with dual American citizenship who was killed and his body taken hostage.

Two hostages, Sagui Dekel-Chen, an Israeli with American citizenship, and Keith Siegel, an American who immigrated to Israel decades ago, were released from captivity in the last few weeks.

“It’s different now because the group is much smaller,” said Alexander. “Some have had terrible news, some have had happy endings, but it’s very tough. At the starting point, almost everyone was alive, and suddenly you get bad news, bad news, the worst news.”

The last week has brought its own set of painful challenges, as the bodies of Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas, and the two little Bibas boys were brought back in coffins, followed by the release of another Hamas video, this one of two hostages, Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, forced by their captors to watch the release of Saturday’s captives.

“It’s a sick, sick game,” said Alexander. “It’s the cruelest thing to see. We need to save them, and I hope Trump sees that video.”

For now, said Alexander, they are waiting for some decisions on phase two of the deal, hoping that her son is on the list.

She worries about the horrific conditions in the Gaza tunnels, knowing that Edan is most probably kept in a similar state as other hostages have been, in the thin air of the tunnels, without sunlight, in filth and torturous conditions.

“Edan has to stay strong,” she said. “I want him to know that we’re coming nonstop to be here, near him, and we’ll be here when he’s released.”