I’m struggling with everything on this article. On the one hand anytime a hostage has been freed, that’s good news. On the other, at what cost. 40 000 dead. That’s the easy stat. Amputations are also incredibly high. Most of them kids and performed without anesthetic. This is the first time the IDF has rescued hostages. So I’m sitting here with my initial feeling of ‘oh, that’s good news’ ,and then I think about the wider picture and context, and it doesn’t seem so good anymore.
Imagine how much resources hamas spent on keeping these hostages and how many lives could be saved if they just released them all before the ground operation was started.
Netanyahu said since November that even if all hostages were released he was going to invade anyway and not stop the war.
Even more reason to release them all then, and I’m appalled by how hamas was that stupid to not realize that.
Maybe the Palestinians themselves devalue their own lives compared to Israeli lives. Just look at when they agreed to a ceasefire and traded hostages for prisoners: each hostage was worth multiple prisoners released by Israel.
This is also noticeable when Hamas use their own population as human shields, exemplified by when they hide their soldiers and weapons in hospitals and schools. Or when they blend in with civilians on purpose by not using any combatant uniform like the IDF do. They really don’t care for their own civilians. These are only useful for acting as human shields and, if they’re killed or injured, strike a pose for NatGeo-style photos in their attempts to appeal to western sentiment.
Maybe the Palestinians themselves devalue their own lives compared to Israeli lives.
You should just stop right there. If your logic depends on saying “they actually don’t value their lives as much as others” then please stop and ask “what the hell is wrong with yourself?”. People who think like this probably value their life least of all. /s
When I see how easily the Hamas uses their own population as sacrifices, I have doubts they really value their lives. Remember: the Gazan population elected the Hamas with more than 60% of the votes. It’s not too farfetched to say a significant part of the Gazans think like the Hamas in terms of sacrifice, and by extension, how they value their lives.
I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen any independent verification that Hamas has been using hospitals and schools for bases, but I’m positive that there’s been debunked Israeli reports that schools and hospitals have been used as Hama’s bases.
Same thing for human shields. IDF admits to using Palestinians as shields. To my knowledge, there’s no Hamas equivalent.
This ‘war’ isn’t about Hamas anyways. If it was, there wouldn’t be 1000 people killed in the west bank. Hamas isn’t in the west bank. Why is the IDF letting people kill Palestinians in the west bank?
And half a dozen months ago they could have had a ceasefire to have them released, along with the ones that STILL aren’t released.
“we don’t negotiate with terrorists” and that stance is “non-negotiable.” If only these terrorists would just stop and do what we want.
