Fate of one hostage unknown

GAZA CITY: The fate of a US-Israeli hostage who Hamas said had featured in an Israeli truce proposal remains unknown, the group said on Saturday, separately releasing a video of another captive alive.

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The body of a guard assigned to the American-Israeli, Edan Alexander, had been recovered from the site of a recent Israeli strike, Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.

"But the fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown," the militants said.

Hamas last Thursday signalled its rejection of the plan, which would have involved Mr Alexander.

A senior Hamas official had last Monday said Israel proposed a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages, the first of whom would have been Mr Alexander.

He is among the dozens of living and dead captives still held in Gaza, 18 months after Hamas's war with Israel began, and weeks into a renewed Israeli offensive that rescuers in Gaza said killed 54 people on Saturday.

Mr Alexander had also featured in a proposal one month earlier from the United States Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

On Tuesday, Hamas announced it had "lost contact" with the militant unit holding Mr Alexander following an Israeli air strike on their location in the Gaza Strip.