Tuesday 21 November 2023

What does Hamas want in return for releasing hostages?

What is Hamas's game plan? They seized, violently and brutally, about 240 hostages on October 7, most of them Israeli civilians, but also some soldiers and people of other nationalities living at the kibbutz which Hamas invaded. They took them into Gaza and hurried them underground into the maze of tunnels built everywhere. They did it for a malign purpose, to put leverage on Israel either to restrict or stop retaliatory strikes or as a bargaining chip to get the Israelis to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in jail. So far ony four hostages have been freed but now Hamas is ready to release a lot more. But what do they want in return and will Israel play ball? Obviously Binyamin Netanyahu is under huge pressure from the families of the hostages to agree a release deal. But agreeing anything with Hamas will be difficult for a leader who has vowed to kill every Hamas fighter in Gaza. The Israeli military will be itching to get on with the mission given them by Israel's war cabinet but they will be expected to call a halt to all bombardments while some of the hostages are released. The deal, whatever it is, was inevitable when it became very clear to the military that they simply didn't have enough precise intelligence to know where each hostage was being held. Apart from one female soldier hostage rescued in the early stages of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the details of which remain fuzzy, no military action has been taken to find and free the other hostages because, presumably, it was decided such a mission was too risky. So Netanyahu had no choice but to do a deal with Hamas. I'm sure Hamas has other plans for the hostages not released in this initial deal. One thing for sure, Hamas will exploit the hostages they keep. That's why they seized them in the first place.

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