Amazon CEO Andy Jassy despatched a message to workers saying he was “incredibly relieved” that Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov was launched from Hamas captivity after being held hostage for almost 500 days.
“I’m incredibly relieved to share the news that our AWS teammate, Sasha Troufanov, who had been held hostage since the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, has been released from captivity,” Jassy wrote in a message to workers.
Jassy says that the corporate had a crew of consultants working with Troufanov’s household “behind the scenes” to safe his launch.
The exec defined that Amazon “painfully” couldn’t touch upon Troufanov’s abduction publicly “for fear that we would negatively impact their ability to be released or how they were treated in captivity.”
Amazon confronted criticism in Might 2024 when it was revealed that Troufanov labored for the corporate, as many famous that the corporate hadn’t mentioned something publicly.
Some on the time speculated that Amazon was conserving quiet to guard itself and its model.
Nonetheless, billionaire hedge fund supervisor Invoice Ackman, a vocal supporter of Israel, gave the web buying large the good thing about the doubt.
Troufanov was working at Amazon Net Companies as {an electrical} engineer when he was kidnapped throughout Hamas’ lethal Oct. 7 assaults.
He was taken hostage together with his mom, grandmother and girlfriend, all of whom have been launched in November 2023 whereas he remained in captivity.
Troufanov’s father was killed in the course of the assaults.
“It’s been an extremely trying time for everybody who knows and cares for Sasha — a lot of angst and feelings of helplessness. But, it can’t approach what Sasha and his family have been through, and we will continue to support them and do everything we can to help them heal,” Jassy wrote in his February 2025 message. He additionally mentioned that his “heart goes out to everyone impacted by the war” and expressed hope that there can be a “long-term peaceful path.”
On Saturday, Troufanov was launched alongside Iair Horn and Sagui Dekel-Chen, who’s an American citizen.
Nonetheless, this virtually didn’t occur as days earlier than their launch, Hamas threatened to delay it over alleged ceasefire violations by Israel.
President Donald Trump then mentioned Israel ought to “let all hell break out” if Hamas didn’t launch all of the remaining hostages by 12 p.m. japanese on Saturday.
The fear group ultimately walked again its menace on Thursday, saying the discharge would go on as deliberate.
After greater than 15 months of conflict, on Jan. 19, Israel and Hamas entered a ceasefire deal during which 33 hostages are anticipated to be launched in alternate for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
