The six killed hostages from top left: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi; from bottom left, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Carmel Gat. Credit: The Hostages Families Forum
by James M Dorsey
Let’s be clear. Hamas’ alleged execution of six Israeli hostages constitutes a war crime.
In a statement this week, Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida appeared to confirm Israel’s assertion that the six captives were executed rather than killed in the fighting in Gaza.
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Abu Ubaida. Source: Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades
Mr. Abu Ubaida suggested Hamas killed the hostages in line with new guidelines issued in June by the group’s military wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, on how guards should handle hostages if Israeli forces approached their hideouts.
The brigades issued the new orders in response to the killing of 274 Palestinians in June in an Israeli military operation that rescued four Hamas-held hostages in the Nuseirat refugee camp in northern Gaza.
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“Netanyahu’s insistence to free prisoners through military pressure, instead of sealing a (ceasefire) deal, means they will be returned to their families in shrouds. Their families must choose whether they want them dead or alive,” Mr. Abu Ubaida said.
Hamas political operatives, including political bureau member Bassam Naim and Beirut-based spokesman Osama Hamdan, attempted to fudge Hamas’ responsibility for the deaths of the six hostages by asserting that their cause of death had yet to be confirmed independently and engaging in whataboutism to divert attention to Israeli actions in Gaza.
Even so, the guidelines call into question Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s insistence that military action is the only way to free some 101 remaining hostages, of which 66 are believed to be still alive.
Nevertheless, Mr. Netanyahu has doubled down on his insistence, citing the killing of the six hostages as evidence.
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Hamas releases hostages in exchange for Palestinians incarcerated in Israel during November 2023 ceasefire. Credit: Source: Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades
Hamas kidnapped 250 people, mostly civilians, during last year’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Hamas released 105 captives in November in exchange for 240 Palestinians incarcerated by Israel during a week-long ceasefire. Israeli military operations have freed only eight captives since the war started 11 months ago.
Hamas’ new guidelines violate international law but have proven to be a powerful tool in the struggle to achieve a Gaza ceasefire.
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Protesters demand hostage deal. Credit: BBC
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis who took to the streets and participated in a half-day general strike in the wake of the killing of the six hostages got Hamas’ message.
The message resonated louder because Hamas was expected to release several of the murdered captives in a prisoner swap had there been a ceasefire.
As a result, the protesters demanded Mr. Netanyahu prioritise the release of the hostages rather than a continuation of the war, which puts at heightened risk the lives of loved ones held captive by a group that shares the prime minister’s disregard for innocent human life.
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Yahya Sinwar and Binyamin Netanyahu. Credit: NZZ
Mr. Netanyahu, like Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who feels Gazans’ suffering is the price of advancing Palestinian national aspirations, can afford to ignore the clamour for a negotiated release of the hostages.
The sad truth is that Messrs. Netanyahu and Sinwar understand the utility of violence. Neither has moral or ethical guardrails against using violence at whatever cost.
As a result, Hamas’ new hostage guidelines are more than a tit-for-tat response to the high Palestinian casualty rates in Israeli military operations, including the June hostage rescue.
The guidelines are rooted in the belief that since Israel’s conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war, violence has repeatedly put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict high on the international community’s agenda.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO’s) plane hijackings and attacks on civilian targets in Israel and abroad in the 1970s and 1980s set the stage for Palestinian recognition of Israel and the creation of the internationally recognised, West Bank-based Palestine Authority.
Hamas’ October 7 attack in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, returned the Palestinian issue to the international forefront, even if the trauma resulting from the assault and Israel’s response that has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians is likely to cloud efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Moreover, Israel’s problem is that 11 months into the Gaza war, countering Hamas’s brutality with a brutal sledgehammer in the Strip as well as the West Bank has crossed the international community’s red lines.
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This week’s British decision to partially suspend arms sales to Israel may be the writing on the wall as are the proceedings in the world’s top courts, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
The arms suspension may be primarily symbolic given that Britain is not one of Israel’s major suppliers, but it makes the UK the first of Israel’s Western supporters to start putting its money where its mouth is.
For Mr. Netanyahu, this means he needs to buy time in the hope that Donald J. Trump will win November’s US presidential elections.
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Donald J. Trump welcomes Binyamin Netanyahu at his Florida Mar a Lago residence. Credit: Trump reelection campaign
Mr. Netanyahu has good reason to expect Mr. Trump to be more supportive of his policies than Kamala Harris if she were to be elected, despite her declared support for Joe Biden’s refusal to follow Britain’s example.
As president, Mr. Trump recognised Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, appointed a US ambassador who supported Israeli ultra-nationalists, defunded the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the primary UN agency servicing Palestinians, and closed the Palestine Authority’s Washington office.
Most analysts believe that Mr. Biden’s failure to sanction Israel has allowed Mr. Netanyahu to ignore the president’s warnings and the international community’s persistent demand for a ceasefire.
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Credit: VOA
Mr. Biden’s efforts to work around Mr. Netanyahu rather than confront him with punitive measures are more glaring because the prime minister’s obstinance has less to do with the ceasefire itself and more to do with Mr. Netanyahu’s post-war vision of Gaza.
US negotiators have adopted former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s approach towards the ceasefire negotiations, which involves solving less difficult issues first in the more often than not false expectation that this will narrow the more complex differences between the parties.
Mr. Netanyahu has skillfully exploited the flaws of Mr. Biden’s negotiating approach to undermine the ceasefire talks by insisting on terms that would ensure, in defiance of the Biden administration’s professed policies, post-war Israeli control of Gaza.
In addition, Mr. Netanyahu has made clear that his notion of Gaza’s future involves creating a Palestinian polity amenable to Israeli security concerns and ultra-nationalist aspirations, in part by destroying Hamas rather than acknowledging the legitimacy of Palestinian national rights.
“There is no Palestinian who will agree to invite Israel to stay in Gaza, not Hamas, not (Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas’) Fatah, not independents,” said Tamer Qarmout, a Qatar-based Palestinian public policy scholar and Al-Jazeera commentator.
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Hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin suggested Hamas could turn the tables on Mr. Netanyahu and force the Biden administration to confront the Israeli prime minister more forcefully by publicly confirming details of a three-week deal Mr. Baskin discussed with the group on behalf of the families of the hostages.
Mr. Baskin said the deal involved exchanging the 101 remaining hostages for an agreed number of Palestinians incarcerated in Israel, ending the war, and withdrawing Israeli troops from Gaza. The mediator said Israeli military officials told him three weeks would be enough to complete a withdrawal from Gaza.
“Hamas should make the deal public. That would create an enormous amount of pressure,” Mr. Baskin said.
Hamas’ public acknowledgment of the potential deal would likely increase domestic pressure on Mr. Netanyahu. Less clear is whether it would persuade the Biden administration to take off the gloves in its dealings with Mr. Netanyahu.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.