Israel believes that 137 hostages remain in Gaza, though many may have been transferred to the custody of other armed groups
A senior Hamas leader claims to not know how many hostages are still held by the group, saying that the tally is “not so important.”
Ghazi Hamad, a top figure in Hamas’ political wing, pleaded ignorance during an interview with CBS News that aired on Thursday, when the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas still stood and more hostages were in the process of being released.
What would stop them? They killed civilians, so what’s stopping them from killing hostages they don’t plan to return?
The promise of their own innocent civilians being returned to them?
Israel has already arrested as many people in the West Bank as it freed in the exchange. Without this war, there was zero hope for the thousands of men, women and children being arrested and tortured to be released. Until the cycle stops, and Israel gives people a just trial before it locks them up, people will get incensed into retaliating for the constant imprisonment, dehumanisation and abuse targeted at the Palestinian population for simply existing.
I saw a video where a girl around 15 was walking on the streets, and a bunch of 6 soldiers surrounded her claiming she had a knife. She was saying again and again, they can search her, she has no knife on her and never carries any weapons, but they still took her away. There are children being locked up for over 10 years for allegedly throwing stones. I understand why a Hamas resistance would be staged to get them back, even if it’s via a prisoner swap. Do I agree with their methods? No, but I don’t disagree with trying to free themselves from their captors.
And IMO if Israel knew this was going to happen a year prior, and had knowledge of Hamas conducting training for this operation, they should have stopped it. One of the most advanced militaries in the world, and they couldn’t stop a bunch of militants from breaking into the country, running rampant for 3 days before returning via the only way in or out with hundreds of prisoners is ridiculous. If they’d just blocked up the wall against and stationed a strong force at the wall, not even a single prisoner would have left Israel.