Route 232 on the Gaza border is quiet and dry. Many symbols and memorials from the October 7 massacre line the road. The concrete bus shelters near Kibbutz Re’im and Alumim are covered with stickers commemorating the fallen. The area of the Nova festival is packed with cars.
These were all areas that were involved in the massacre 584 days ago. The ever-present memory of the last nineteen months of war is tangible here.
However, Route 232 also became a site of hope on Monday, May 12, as hostage Edan Alexander was driven along it to Re’im’s military base. It was nighttime, around eight in the evening, but he was finally free from Hamas’s hands.
I stood on the side of the road in the evening, waiting with two dozen people who had come to wave flags and wish Alexander well. Journalists had come as well.
This was a special community of people, a small fellowship that had come to wait for another hostage to come home. Some of them had been here throughout the war – they came back in January and February 2025, when 33 captives were freed in a ceasefire deal.
These people come out of a sense of duty.
In the evening of May 11, 2025, the news arrived that Edan Alexander, one of 59 hostages still held in Gaza, was going to be released. There had been an expectation about this news because US President Donald Trump had wanted him freed.
Alexander was the last living American hostage held by Hamas. The terrorist group is also holding the bodies of four other US citizens: Itay Chen, Gadi Haggai, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Omer Neutra.
With the long-awaited news that Alexander was going to be released, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler, the US hostage envoy, both arrived in Israel to see Alexander freed.
His family also came. In New Jersey, people gathered early in the morning, waiting for news. This was a worldwide anticipation.
At the Re’im base, Route 232 snakes along the border. It runs from communities such as Kibbutz Re’im, Alumim, and Be’eri, all communities which were attacked on October 7.
When one drives this road, they know they are in a special landscape. It is afternoon. The traffic is light. There are some IDF vehicles and tanks on the back of large trucks designed to transport them. The fields are gold and brown.
It is spring, and it’s not quite stifling hot here, but soon it will become summer, and the landscape seems to be taking a deep breath before the heat sets in.
Camp Re’im is an area that was set up for people to gather. These activists from the local Eshkol region have come before to wave Israeli flags and yellow flags, symbolizing a desire for the hostages’ return.
They have shirts calling for all the hostages to come home, “until the last one.”
Law enforcement is present as well to make sure that no one blocks the road. Police have been deployed along the whole route that Edan Alexander was expected to be transported along.
As the sun dipped low in the sky, news came that Alexander had been handed over to the Red Cross. An image posted on social media showed a member of the Red Cross with Alexander, flanked by three terrorists. The terrorists were camouflaged, holding Steyr AUG rifles.
We have all gotten used to these “ceremonies” where Hamas parades hostages. Reports had said that Hamas would not stage this ceremony.
Apparently, Hamas had been ordered to downplay the release and not humiliate Alexander.
By the time the sun was almost set, word came that Alexander was in the hands of the IDF and on the way to the border. People waited for several helicopters to land. Reports said Boehler had arrived with Alexander’s mother and that Witkoff had also come.
Israeli soldiers were waiting to receive the American envoys. Alexander was expected to be reunited with his family and then brought to a hospital for a medical examination.
A hero's welcome
Alexander is an IDF soldier from the Golani Brigade, and one of the people who came to the road to greet him had brought a Golani flag.
Others waved flags from the Eshkol Regional Council.
As time ticked by and the sunny day turned to dusk. As dark grey and blue colors draped the fields, people heard that Alexander was finally on his way to the base.
The road was quiet, and the traffic stopped. Several wild dogs could be seen digging in the dirt by the road. Finally, headlights appeared, and then more and more – a convoy driving slowly.
The vehicles passed the small crowd that had turned out. Then the convoy slowly turned into the base and toward the meeting place.
It was dark now. Several members of the group called for the release of all the hostages “until the last one.”
Then they gathered up their flags and began to head home. One said he would wait until the helicopter with Alexander was expected to lift off.
Now the dark road beckoned. Route 232 stretched back toward Sderot along the border.
I drove back toward Ashkelon. It was quiet, except for some cars plying this route. 584 days since the war began, soon to be 585.