world news
Can Hamas locate remaining hostages in mayhem of Gaza war?
Ever since it seized more than 200 people in the deadly rampage through southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war, Hamas has hoped to use hostages as bargaining cards with Israel in order to win freedom for Palestinians in Israeli jails.
But as mediators try to secure extensions to a truce between Israel and Hamas to enable more hostage releases, the Palestinian terrorist group may struggle to locate more captives in the chaos of the conflict, Palestinian and Egyptian security sources familiar with the talks said.
While Hamas planned and launched the Oct. 7 attack, other terrorists quickly joined in, pouring into Israel and seizing more people. Hamas says it is working to locate them in a Gaza Strip shattered by weeks of Israeli bombardment.
Hamas may also be holding back information, the sources said. Mediator Egypt believes Hamas is concealing some of what it knows, and saying it needs to do so for security reasons and as a negotiating strategy, Egyptian security sources said.Network of tunnels
Hamas has said the hostages were being treated well, in line with Islamic teachings. They are believed to be in a vast network of tunnels that Hamas has built over the years.
But the Israeli air strikes, which flattened entire neighborhoods, may have cut off passages between tunnels, making it difficult for Hamas to find hostages.
One Palestinian source said the bombardment “complicated” the situation in the field.
The bodies of at least two hostages have been recovered by Israeli forces in Gaza and Hamas has said that more than 60 hostages were missing due to Israeli air strikes.
Islamic Jihad, another Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group, has said they have more than 30 captives, indicating there could be 20 who might be held by members of smaller groups.
The hostages have ranged from a baby and young children to grandmothers and soldiers, some taken from kibbutzim, others from a music festival.
Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad took part in a prisoner swap on Tuesday, which suggests that Hamas may be collecting hostages from other groups.
One Israeli source with knowledge of the issue said Hamas was estimated to be holding 90% of the hostages.
“It’s their responsibility to find the other 10%,” the source said.
Asked whether Hamas was capable of locating all the other hostages, the source said: “They are capable of anything inside the strip. The question is whether they want to.”
“It’s convenient for them to say that they’re not holding all of them so that they can buy time.”
Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya said the group would be able to meet conditions to extend a truce if they could locate more captives.
Even if Hamas is able to find all the remaining hostages, it is unlikely to turn over information because the captives give the terrorist group leverage, a Western source in the Gulf said.
Some may have perished in the fighting.
“It’s highly likely that there were a lot of hostages taken out in those air strikes,” the source said.
Hostages seized during rampage
The hostages released so far were among some 240 people seized by the terrorists during the Oct. 7 raid, which Israel says killed 1,200 people. Israel’s bombardment of Hamas-ruled Gaza in retaliation has killed more than 15,000 Gazans, Hamas-run health authorities there said.
The heads of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel’s Mossad met Qatar’s prime minister in Doha on Tuesday to discuss the truce between Israel and Hamas.
Officials in the meeting talked about a possible new phase of the truce agreement including Hamas releasing hostages who are men or military personnel, not just women and children, a source said.
Qatar spoke to Hamas before the meeting to get a sense of what the group might agree to, the source added.
About 159 hostages remain in Gaza.
Two Palestinian sources close to truce efforts said the talks are focused at present on swapping non-soldiers – meaning Israeli civilians, dual nationals, and foreigners, but no talks about the soldiers are underway.
The soldiers “have different types of prices,” Hamas says.
One of those prices would be for Israel to “clear all prisons,” meaning all Palestinians jailed in Israel.
About 5,000 Palestinians were being held by Israel before Oct. 7, but Israel has since rounded up around 3,000, almost all from the West Bank, said the Palestinian Prisoners Club, which documents and cares for all Palestinian detainees.
Some have been held without trial in what Israel calls “administrative detention.” Some are children, held for such actions as throwing stones, while others are accused of stabbing attempts on Israelis.
Hamas is well aware that it has in the past secured the release of large numbers of prisoners in return for one soldier.
In 2011, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was freed after five years in captivity in return for freedom for 1,027 Palestinians held in Israeli jails for carrying out attacks against Israelis.
Shalit was captured by Palestinian terrorists who tunneled into Israel and took him across the frontier into Gaza.
Hamas and Israel were expected to release more hostages and prisoners on Wednesday, the last day of an extended six-day truce in the Gaza war. Mediator Qatar is trying to negotiate another extension.
Israel has said the truce could be prolonged further, provided Hamas continues to free at least 10 Israeli hostages per day.
But with fewer women and children still in captivity, keeping the guns quiet beyond Wednesday may require negotiating to free at least some Israeli men for the first time.
Palestinian sources said Hamas was able to gather some hostages with smaller groups, but it is unclear whether the Islamic Jihad would carry its own swaps or conduct them through Hamas.
Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy said on Wednesday the government held Hamas fully responsible for the abduction of everyone held inside Gaza.
“We’re demanding that Hamas bring them back and do everything in order to bring them back,” he said.
Everyone wants the Mossad on their side when it comes to the debate over the Philadelphi Corridor.
The Jerusalem Post has reported multiple times since May that the unchanging position of the Mossad is that Israel can and should withdraw from the corridor if that would bring back between 18-30 hostages and provided Phase 1 of the hostage deal with Hamas would allow the IDF to return to attacking Hamas in the corridor after around 45 days.
The Post and other outlets have also reported that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the IDF high command favor a deal under such terms, including temporarily withdrawing from the corridor to get some of the hostages back.
Yet on Sunday, an anonymous source who was present during the most recent diplomatic-security cabinet meeting leaked to the media that Mossad Director David Barnea supported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position not to withdraw from the corridor.In fact, the anonymous source went even further saying that Barnea did not think Netanyahu should move toward Hamas on the issue “even one millimeter.”
Although… actually, that is not what the anonymous source said if the leaked statement is looked at carefully. Rather, it made a messy and hazy statement about Barnea supporting the Israeli position on the corridor to the extent that it would be acceptable to the US.Anyone who has followed the US position knows that it wishes Israel had stopped the war in December-January and for sure by May, and has tried everything it could to pressure Netanyahu to withdraw from the corridor.
Now, once the US said it could not get Netanyahu to completely withdraw from the corridor, it started to explore if it could get Hamas and Egypt to agree to a small Israeli presence in portions of the corridor, while otherwise generally withdrawing. That is not the same thing as thinking that Netanyahu’s stance on the corridor is the right move.The Mossad is in a somewhat similar position.
Mossad’s current position
There are some points where the Mossad’s position is tougher than the US position, but generally, since May, Barnea has been closer to the US, IDF, and Gallant’s view that it is time to cut a deal, even temporarily sacrificing control of the corridor, than he has been to Netanyahu’s staunch opposition to concessions in that area.
Also, usually, when the Mossad puts something out backing Netanyahu in negotiations, it is in its own name, not in the name of some anonymous cabinet official.The absence of a direct statement of support for Netanyahu from the Mossad itself is deafening.
So why is someone (from Netanyahu’s side) trying to pretend that the Mossad stands with the prime minister on this? Bodies of six hostages, who had been alive until last week, were just recovered.Netanyahu is under the greatest domestic pressure in Israel to compromise that he has been under possibly since the start of the war.
As he explains his position to the public, if he can claim that the defense establishment is split – IDF versus the Mossad – then he does not stand alone. His position looks principled and part of a serious strategy instead of about politics. Likewise, Gallant and the IDF want the Mossad on their side so they can present a united professionals’ front versus a political front. The truth is even without the Mossad, there is some principled opposition to cutting a deal if the question is saving the most Jewish lives on a long-term basis by ensuring Hamas is destroyed. But this also requires saying out loud that Netanyahu would be willing to let hostages die as a price to achieve that goal – because that is what happened this past week. Netanyahu is not ready to do this, so instead he would prefer if the battle can be about who supports who and a divide within the defense establishment.However, the more hostages die, there also becomes less incentive for a deal to save the shrinking total number of them still alive.
Whatever the Mossad’s view is, there is no question at this point that Netanyahu is the decider about the question of saving hostages versus keeping the corridor.
World soccer’s governing body FIFA has delayed again its decision on a Palestinian bid to have Israel suspended from international soccer over the war in Gaza.
FIFA said late on Friday it would now consider the Palestine Football Association’s (PFA) proposals against the Israel Football Association (IFA) in October.
The PFA had submitted a proposal to suspend Israel in May, with FIFA ordering an urgent legal evaluation and promising to address it at an extraordinary meeting of its council in July.
FIFA said last month the legal assessment would now be shared with its council by Aug. 31.The Zurich-based body said it had now moved the assessment back to October.
“FIFA has received the independent legal assessment of the Palestine Football Association’s proposals against Israel,” FIFA said.
“This assessment will be sent to the FIFA Council to review in order that the subject can be discussed at its next meeting which will take place in October.”
FIFA declined to give further details of the assessment, or when in October the meeting would take place.
The PFA did not respond to requests for comment.
Accusations against the IFA
The Palestinian proposal accuses the IFA of complicity in violations of international law by the Israeli government, discrimination against Arab players, and inclusion in its league of clubs located in Palestinian territory.
The IFA has rejected the allegations.
The PFA has said at least 92 Palestinian players have been killed in the war, football infrastructure has been destroyed, its leagues suspended and its national team required to play World Cup qualifiers abroad.
In its proposal, the PFA wanted FIFA to adopt “appropriate sanctions” against Israeli teams, including the national side and clubs.
The IDF is doing a better job at catching Palestinian terrorists than Jewish ones.
Anecdotal evidence and statistical evidence both bear this out.
As of August 2024, there were 9,881 Palestinian security inmates being held by Israel.
3,432 Palestinians were being held in administrative detention along with 1,584 Palestinian “unlawful combatants,” 2,074 sentenced prisoners, and 2,791 pre-indictment or pre-conviction detainees.We also know that in the West Bank alone, close to 5,000 Palestinians have been detained over the course of the war.
Sometimes Palestinian terrorists are not immediately caught after an attack, but quite often they are, and it is very rare that they are not caught or killed within a period of weeks or months.
Yet, in multiple February 2023 incidents of Jewish terrorists attacking Palestinians in Huwara, we know that out of hundreds of Jewish attackers, less than 10 were arrested, and an even smaller number seem to be getting prosecuted.
So far out of over 100 Jewish terrorists who attacked the Palestinian village of Jit in mid-August, only four have been detained.
These trends are not new.
Outgoing IDF Central Commander for the West Bank, Maj. Gen, Yedhua Fuchs, said this in his final speech on July 8, current Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar recently accused officials like National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of sometimes indirectly and sometimes almost explicitly encouraging the phenomenon, and former Shin Bet and IDF Central Commanders have been sounding somewhat similar warnings on and off certainly since 2014.
The IDF and Shin Bet have also accused Ben Gvir of discouraging the police from reining in Jewish violence, whether in the West Bank or against humanitarian aid trucks trying to get to Kerem Shalom to bring food to Gaza Palestinians earlier in the current war.
There has been extremist Jewish violence against Palestinians with significantly below expectations arrests for many years, even though that violence is still at a much lower volume than Palestinian violence.
The problem isn’t bringing caught perpetrators to justice, that has been happening many times since 2014, when Palestinians have been killed by a Jew or Jews.
Once caught, Israel has pushed hard to prosecute such persons.
On August 15, the Jerusalem Post reported exclusively that the 2019 indictment against a full-bodied minor (his identity is under gag order) for the alleged killing of Palestinian female and mother Aysha Rabi in October 2018 could be close to a verdict in later 2024 or early 2025.
This would not be the only such case of Jewish terrorists facing justice for violence against Palestinians, with the 2014 murderer of Palestinian minor Muhammad Abu Khadir, Yoseph Chaim Ben David, and the 2015 murderer of the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, Amiram Ben Uliel, both sentenced to life in jail in recent years.
Elor Ben Azariah, Ben Deri, and other IDF soldiers have also been given prison time for killing Palestinians.
But this does not address the fact that most Jewish terrorists are never caught in the first place.
So why does Israel catch Jewish terrorists less often than Palestinian ones?
Some of it is the constant passing the ball back and forth between the IDF and the Police, neither of who wants the politically unpopular job of reining in Jewish violence against Palestinians.
Anyone who does that job “well” in recent years comes under attack by Ben Gvir and others who seem to always be opposed to indicting or convicting Jews accused of attacking Palestinians.
Top IDF sources have made it clear to the Post that the military’s main role is to fight wars against other foreign militaries like Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, not to enforce law and order to block small-scale Jewish violence against Palestinians. They believe that the police should be handling Jewish violence in the West Bank, whereas the police, even before Ben Gvir, said they could not carry out large operations in Palestinian areas without the IDF taking the lead.
What has changed since Huwara in 2023 and now with Jit, is that the attacks by Jews on Palestinians are no longer solely small scale.
Now there is a pattern of large scale attacks even if the number of them is still small in relative terms.
During the Second Intifada, Israel decided that it could not view Palestinian terrorism from the West Bank as a mere “law enforcement” issue with very limited rules of engagement.
Rather, it was a terrorism issue, which meant more aggressive rules of engagement.
If a Palestinian throws a rock at an IDF vehicle and breaks the windshield and then flees, even if no one in the IDF vehicle was hurt and even though the Palestinian is running away, and as such no longer presents an immediate threat, IDF open fire rules allow shooting for the Palestinian’s legs to make sure he does not escape.
At Jit, despite over 100 Jews attacking Palestinians and the IDF soldiers “live being in danger” from the Jews as well, all they did was physically push the Jewish attackers out of the village and at most fire in the air.
Sources said that they failed to arrest any of the over 100 Jews because it was hard to catch the attackers running in all different directions at night.
But if the soldiers were allowed to shoot for the legs when trying to arrest Jews involved in large scale attacks, maybe they would have caught more of them. Maybe also fewer Jews would risk attacking Palestinians.
Confronted with this possible change to the open fire rules, both current and former IDF officials who handle such issues did not seem to view such a change as remotely likely.
Some said this question was very dependent on the unique circumstances on the ground, which only the commander seeing things in real time could decide. Others said that there was no principled reason why IDF soldiers could not open fire on the legs of fleeing Jewish attackers, but that this could only be employed if there was no less lethal way of arresting them.
Yet, these responses present the issue as if there is not already evidence that the IDF is doing an extremely poor job of catching such people.
4 out of 100 is a 4% success rate. Clearly, less lethal means are not working and whoever the commander on the ground has been has not acted aggressively enough. This was also the conclusion of the IDF probe issued on Wednesday of the Jit incident.
A much more honest read is that IDF soldiers shooting at Jews legs (even not trying to kill) to protect Palestinians would just be either too politically explosive or likely too many IDF soldiers would ignore the orders and fake some technical sounding reason why they could not fire (such as innocent people being mixed in with attackers.)
There might be creative alternatives. Firing some kind of tracer that cannot be removed or object which could sedate someone trying to flee.
A huge permanent contingent of soldiers guarding all crossover areas throughout the West Bank could succeed, but is also unrealistic in terms of resources.
In the meantime, it is not clear that the IDF has seriously contended with how it will prevent the next Huwara or Jit. If that does not change, no one should be surprised when another IDF probe comes out apologizing for failing to protect Palestinians.
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