The total cruelty of hostage-taking

The taking of 250 hostages by Hamas on October 7 last year has led to nothing but brutality, cruelty, suffering, misery and death. For Hamas it was the one card they played which they knew, because they have done it before, would cause the biggest challenge for Israel. And so it has proved. Today there are only about 100 hostages left, more than 30 of them known by the Israel Defence Forces to be dead. Will any of the survivors be freed or will Hamas hang on to them to try and force Israel to a ceasefire deal BEFORE Benjamin Netanyahu has completed his principal objective of destroying totally the terrorist organisation that has been running Gaza since 2007. The murder of six hostages last week just before Israeli commandos arrived to free them has created a massive dilemma for Netanyahu. The whole of Israel is today calling for a ceasefire deal to free the remaining hostages, dead or alive, but the nurder of the six hostages will make it even more difficult for the Israeli leader to do any sort of deal with Hamas. How can you agree to a deal with such an organisation? And yet if he doesn't agree to a deal, his own people will rise up against him. It's an impossible dilemma. I suspect Netanyahu will redouble his efforts to destroy Hamas. The war will go on and more hostages will die.