π️Lonny's War Update- October 652, 2023 - July 19, 2025 π️
π️Day 652 that 50 of our hostages are still in Hamas captivityπ️
Hamas military spokesperson: No promise to offer partial deal again in future negotiations
The spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, says in a recorded speech that “we do not promise to reintroduce a draft of a partial deal and an offer to release ten prisoners [hostages] if Israel withdraws from the current negotiations.”
In his first recorded speech in four months, Abu Obeida says that Hamas had repeatedly offered a comprehensive deal to release all the hostages in recent weeks, but Netanyahu refused. link Although Netanyahu will likely deny it, Hamas has in fact been willing to agree to a comprehensive deal to end the war and release all hostages. My brother presented a comprehensive deal to Hamas and were ready to agree if Israel would present it. Israel/Netanyahu refused. This was a 3 week deal to pull all troops back, Hamas gives up governing Gaza, all hostages released at once and the war ends. Netanyahu wouldn't hear anything about it.
Hamas ‘dragging its feet’ on Doha hostage talks, senior Israeli official says
Hamas is “dragging its feet” in hostage talks in Doha, a senior Israeli official tells Israeli reporters in a briefing.
“Israel is ready to see negotiations with Hamas through to the end, but the refusal and foot-dragging are raising doubts about Hamas’ seriousness.”
Hamas, says the official, “thinks time is in its favor.” The official stresses ongoing IDF operations in Gaza as evidence that time is in Israel’s favor.
Specifically, Hamas is not moving forward on the ratio of prisoners released for each hostage, says the official. “This is delaying the ceasefire. It insists on not moving to discussions on the issue. This is preventing us from making progress.”
An Arab diplomat and a second source involved in the mediation effort told The Times of Israel on Thursday that Hamas had in fact lifted its veto over discussing the terms of the hostage-prisoner swap after receiving Israel’s updated maps depicting the IDF’s partial withdrawal from Gaza during the two-month truce under discussion.
Meanwhile, Israel’s negotiators remain in Qatar, says the senior Israeli official. There is also an Israeli team in Cairo discussing humanitarian aid in the event of a ceasefire.
“As soon as Hamas clears the way, we will be able to make progress,” says the official.
Egypt fed up with Hamas refusal to take Gaza deal, pushing terror group to accept, Arab diplomat tells ToI
Egypt is fed up with Hamas, and its delegation in Qatar threatened the terror group’s delegation over its refusal to accept a ceasefire deal in Gaza, an Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel.
Egypt is “pressuring Hamas to accept,” says the diplomat.
The diplomat confirms an i24 report that the Egyptians threatened Hamas delegation head Khalil al-Hayya with deportation and insulted him over his refusal to accept a deal.
A second source involved in the mediation efforts says the Egyptian anger at Hamas is due to what Cairo feels is the terror group’s foot-dragging in the negotiations.
Mediators are still waiting for Hamas to respond to the new set of maps submitted this week by Israel that lay out a softened proposal of its partial withdrawal from Gaza during the 60-day truce under discussion, the source says.
Despite the frustration with Hamas, the source says the issue is surmountable and a deal is still possible within days.
Arbel Yehud on 482 Days in Gaza and the Abduction: “And Then They Tore Ariel Away From Me”
When the survivor of captivity, Arbel Yehud, is asked if she feels like she came back from Gaza, she says: only physically. Her heart is still there. And she means her partner, Ariel Cunio, who has been in the tunnels of Gaza for 651 days. We met Arbel together with the group of young people from Nir Oz, and heard why she decided not to meet Netanyahu in Nir Oz – and about the moment when her friend, Shani Goren, revealed the secret of her life precisely in captivity.
Arbel Yehud was alone in captivity for 482 days. In the most difficult period of her life, she held onto the remnants of hope and memories. And they were always there – the friends from Nir Oz, those she grew up with. When she came home, she began to make up for the time that had passed.
How alone were you?
Arbel: “There? The most alone.”
And what is it to be in captivity, alone?
Arbel: “First of all, you wake up and you understand that you are still alive. You only have to hold onto hope and pray that one day you will get out of there. There are very-very-very difficult moments when for a second you want to put an end to it yourself – and those are truly scary moments.”
And were you there?
Arbel: “Yes. But I never lost that one percent of hope, even if it was the last fumes.”
Exactly a year ago, we went on a joint trip with the young people of Nir Oz. It was an attempt to recreate the trip they used to do together every year – but in July 2024, they were missing three friends: Arbel, Sasha, and Ariel. Arbel watched the report afterwards. “It was really a very big punch to the stomach,” she says, “to see them crushed and completely broken and falling apart and exhausted.”
Arbel and Sasha came back, Ariel is still there
In the last hostage deal, Arbel and Sasha came home. Ariel, Arbel’s partner, is still there. And we went on another trip in a partial group – this time to a place that in youth had been the center of their lives. The place where they had their bar mitzvah photos taken – the pool in Nir Oz.
The report on the joint trip – without Arbel and Sasha – from last year:
They sat down for a group conversation. In the place where Amit and Nofar were supposed to get married. The invitations for the wedding, which had been planned for the end of that October, had already been sent. The wedding was canceled, but Arbel, alone in captivity, had no idea. “I had some kind of ‘vision’ in my head that there was currently a wedding taking place without me and without Ariel,” she says alongside her friends. “I didn’t yet understand that we were in such a huge story with so many hostages. There were about three hours that I cried non-stop because I didn’t get to see it.”
It has been exactly one year since the last time we met. Did you think we’d be sitting here another year in this group and it still wouldn’t be complete?
“In our worst nightmares we didn’t imagine it,” says Nofar. “It really wasn’t an imaginable scenario for me, that we’d still be living in the same reality,” adds Maayan Westland.
What did you think?
“That this story would be over,” clarifies Maayan.
“In the general feeling, nothing really has changed, because we’re in some sort of waiting state,” says Galit Salimson. “There’s only more air in the lungs because Arbel and Sasha came back, because Yair came back. Breathing is a bit deeper, but the lungs are heavy.”
“Here were the sparks of the beginning”
They gathered on the edge of the pool, unloaded the equipment. Every moment here floods everything. For two years Ariel worked as a lifeguard at the pool. They had many hours here together. This love story started on one of the youth group trips. “That’s where the sparks of the beginning were,” says Arbel.
Why are you smiling?
“When he comes back, as soon as possible, there’s a good story there. But it’s only together with him. At night, after we finished sitting with everyone, and drinking and laughing and doing a barbecue and all, neither he nor I really wanted to go to sleep. He simply said to me: let’s go, like, for a walk. And then a few months later, already in winter, it developed into something more.”
How long did you hide it?
“A year.”
(Photo: Channel 12 News)
All the friends from the kibbutz together“In our worst nightmares we didn’t imagine it.”
The friends from the kibbutz at the Nir Oz pool, still an incomplete group
(Photo: Channel 12 News)They thought they had managed to hide the relationship from the friends. But last year we discovered that it did not quite work. “I found out when I came to Arbel one time and the door was locked. She said ‘I just lock the door.’ Sure...” says Shani Goren. “But it’s also something that... like, you could also see in the dynamic that he had been in love with her for a long time,” adds Maayan.
They abducted you together, and the last moment you were together was where?
“In the car. We were holding hands the whole time. He said something, I said something. ‘Our lives are gone.’ And then they just... tore him away. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to see his eyes. I remember that I screamed to him and that I tried to go toward him and they silenced me very quickly.”
(Photo: Channel 12 News)
Arbel and her friends from the kibbutz“I imagine the hug with him in Re’im.”
Arbel and her friends in the kibbutz, still without Ariel
(Photo: Channel 12 News)Arbel was held alone in captivity, in isolation, with hunger and horrific hygiene conditions. She endured violence and prolonged abuse there. She managed to grasp reality only a short time before her release. “In the last month and a half-two months a television arrived,” she recalls. “They turned it to Al-Jazeera, and every time one of their commentators spoke, on the side of the screen there was a half-screen showing videos of the 2023 releases. Suddenly I was exposed to the fact that these were many people from the kibbutz.”
At the end of January, she came home. The moments of terror in the heart of Gaza are hard to forget. “At first we were close to the Red Cross vehicle and then we turned right and moved away, and I heard them talking about how the photo or video of me walking must come out,” she explains.
How afraid were you there?
Arbel: “There was fear, you know, because of the chaos, that there would be shooting in all directions. Afterwards, in the crowd, I was in deep shock. There are parts I don’t remember.”
Did you come back from captivity?
Arbel: “No. Physically yes, but not in the heart or mind. I am there. You cannot come out of a place like that. To know that you came out, and others did not.”
“I was in deep shock. There are parts I don’t remember.”
Arbel Yehud on her way to the Red Cross vehicles
Arbel among Hamas terrorists, before release from captivityDo you know if Ariel knows you are alive?
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. But I think that... maybe for psychological terror they surely told him.”
The friends were there by her side at the hospital, and when she came home they accompanied her 24/7. Slowly Arbel is beginning to understand that there is a gap between her and them. “Both I and they, all of us, experienced so many disappointments. They are from here, I am from beyond the fence. I am still learning what it is like from here. Today I am where they were a year ago,” she clarifies.
Shani came out of the closet in Gaza: “Some were surprised”
Shani Goren was released from captivity in the first deal. At night she still wakes from nightmares, but she no longer goes through them alone. “For 30 years I wasn’t in a relationship,” she says. “Suddenly I’m in a relationship. 9 months already. A long time. First time I know what it is to feel.”
Is it connected to what you went through?
“I’ll tell you what. I was in the closet for many-many years. The friends before captivity knew, but in the kibbutz for example – not. In captivity I told them, some were surprised.”
(Photo: Channel 12 News)
Shani Goren“First time I know what it is to feel.”
Shani Goren
(Photo: Channel 12 News)You told them? Like, you came out of the closet in Gaza?
“To those I was with, yes. You could say it made me realize a lot of things and learn a lot about myself, and also accept a lot about myself. It allowed me to open more rooms inside me.”
“Before captivity, the friends knew, but in the kibbutz – not. In captivity I told them, some were surprised”
– Shani GorenAlso the life of Zohar, whose two parents were murdered and abducted on October 7, took a turn last month, when their bodies were returned to Israel in an operation by the IDF and Shin Bet. That circle closed. “It caught us completely by surprise,” she says. “We all ran out of words. We couldn’t respond when the officers told us. We didn’t understand what was happening. And it’s a mourning process all over again, that’s why this month was so hard for me. Because it’s real.”
What’s written on your shirt?
“What a beautiful question. My father, on Friday October 6, wrote a Facebook status without knowing that the next day he would no longer be alive. ‘Live your life as if today is your last day, but learn as if you will live forever.’”
In two months, something else joyful – and also emotional – will happen. Nofar and Amit will marry, two years late. Maayan is also getting married. She set the date when Arbel returned from captivity, assuming that soon everyone would be back. “It’s really hard to think about getting married, when the person closest to me, her heart is torn and broken and missing,” she says. “I’m not in a place of judging anyone, and I don’t want to judge anyone,” says Arbel. “But these are very-very-very mixed emotions.”
Zohar Hagai presents the shirt bearing her murdered father's quote from the kibbutz
(Photo: Channel 12 News)Sasha, who returned from captivity with Arbel, did not take part in this gathering. He is on a PR tour in the United States for the hostages. And he too announced this week that he is getting married. “Sapir and I were together for a year and two months. Turns out that the year and a half I was in captivity also counts,” he tells his friends on a phone call. “Afterwards, when we moved on and returned, our relationship actually got stronger.”
How alone are you?
“Not as alone as I was there, but I feel alone.”
What do you miss most?
“To sleep with him, to sit with him at home, to talk to him, to hear his voice.”
Arbel is now putting all her energy not into herself, but into the struggle. Last month she organized a soccer game on Ariel’s birthday. “I imagine the hug with him in Re’im, I imagine the first time sleeping with him, I imagine the first night with him, the first conversation, his smell, his voice, the wedding with him, the children with him. Everything. I imagine it and summon it,” she says.
The friends speak with Sasha, who is on an awareness trip in the U.S. for the hostages
(Photo: Channel 12 News)At the beginning of the month, months late, the Prime Minister came to visit the kibbutz that was abandoned on his watch. Arbel was invited to take part in the visit, but chose not to come. Inbar, whose brother Tamir went out to fight the terrorists on October 7 and was killed in battle – his body still held in Gaza – was the only one from the group who came to the meeting with Netanyahu.
“I felt that if already meeting someone, it should be with him here and not in his office or anywhere else,” he explains. “He stood and saw where my brother was murdered, and saw Eitan’s burnt house behind him. He didn’t ask for forgiveness or take responsibility for anything, but at least he was wise enough to sit and listen.” Arbel sums up: “I feel like I’m still restrained, like in captivity. As if everything is inside.”
Are the decision makers disappointing you?
“That’s too soft a word. The military pressure endangers the hostages, kills them, wounds them physically and mentally.”
They don’t understand that up there?
“I don’t know if they don’t understand. I think they just don’t care.” link
**There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!**
“I’ve never met them,But I miss them. I’ve never met them,but I think of them every second. I’ve never met them,but they are my family. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
We’re waiting for you, all of you.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks and Death Announcements
*10:00pm - Gush Dan, Shfela and Jerusalem areas - Ballistic Missile from Yemen- successfully intercepted - no reports of injuries or damages
Alert Areas
IDF says it killed Hamas battalion commander who invaded Israel on Oct. 7
The commander of Hamas’ Daraj-Tuffah Battalion, who invaded Israel during the October 7 onslaught, was killed in a recent strike in the Gaza Strip, the IDF and Shin Bet announce.
Muhammad Usayn was killed in a strike last week in the area of Gaza City’s eastern Daraj and Tuffah neighborhoods, according to the military.
Usayn invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, during the Hamas-led onslaught, and during the war, carried out numerous attacks on troops, the IDF says.
The IDF says his killing “constitutes a significant blow to the functioning of the battalion he commanded and will diminish the battalion’s ability to carry out terror operations against IDF troops operating in the area.”
Israel says ‘key’ Islamic Jihad money handler killed in Gaza Strip this week
A prominent Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip earlier this week, the IDF and Shin Bet announce.
The strike on Sunday killed Raed Khaled Hassan Jabin, who the military says was a “key” Islamic Jihad operative involved in transferring funds to advance terror attacks from the West Bank.
He was jailed in Israel between 2006 and 2015 for his involvement in Islamic Jihad terror activity, the IDF says.
“In recent years and throughout the war, Jabin operated in several ways to transfer terror funds of the Islamic Jihad terror organization, aimed at advancing and executing terrorist attacks” in the West Bank, the statement says.
Hamas-run civil defense agency says 10 killed near GHF aid sites
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency says that Israeli fire killed 10 aid seekers today.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal says that Israeli fire killed nine people “near the US aid center in the Al-Shakoush area, northwest of Rafah city in southern Gaza.”
The US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations in late May as Israel eased a two-month total aid blockade that had sparked warnings of famine.
After weeks of chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Palestinians being killed nearby while waiting to collect rations, GHF acknowledged that 20 people died in a crush at one of its aid points in southern Gaza on Wednesday.
Bassal also reports “one martyr and eight injuries as a result of Israeli gunfire at civilians gathered near an aid distribution point close to the Netzarim corridor, south of Gaza City.”
The Israeli military says it was “not aware” of the incident near Rafah when contacted by AFP.
IDF says some 90 terror targets hit in Gaza over past day; Palestinian media reports dozens of casualties
The Israeli Air Force struck approximately 90 terror targets in the Gaza Strip over the past day, including buildings used by terror operatives and tunnels, the military says in a daily update.
Dozens of casualties were reported by media outlets in Gaza over the past day, though there are no immediate tolls announced by the Hamas-run health ministry or other authorities.
The strikes come as five IDF divisions, made up of tens of thousands of troops, continue ground operations across the Strip.
Palestinians say 26 killed in shootings near Gaza aid sites
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency says Israeli fire killed 26 people and wounded more than 100 near two aid centers in the south of the Strip.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Basal, who Israel accuses of being a Hamas operative, tells AFP that 22 were killed near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and four near another center northwest of Rafah, blaming “Israeli gunfire” for both.
The Israeli military said it was “looking into” the claims.
Hundreds of people have been reported killed in incidents of shooting near the aid centers run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel denies shooting at people waiting for aid, but says it has fired warning shots at those who come to close to troops.
One eyewitness said he headed to the Al-Tina area of Khan Yunis before dawn with five of his relatives to try to get food when “Israeli soldiers” started shooting.
“My relatives and I were unable to get anything,” Abdul Aziz Abed, 37, tells AFP. “Every day I go there and all we get is bullets and exhaustion instead of food.”
IDF: Troops ‘fired warning shots’ near Gaza aid center when Palestinians approached ‘in way that threatened forces’After Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency reported that 26 Palestinians were killed and over 100 were wounded near aid distribution sites in Rafah, the IDF says it is aware of reports of casualties after troops fired warning shots.
The military says that overnight, Palestinians had approached Israeli forces in the Rafah area “in a way that threatened the forces.”
“Troops operated to prevent the suspects from approaching them, called for them to distance themselves, and after they did not comply, the troops fired warning shots,” the IDF says.
According to the army, the incident took place a kilometer away from the closest aid site and during the night, when it was not open for Palestinians to collect aid packages.
The IDF says it “is aware of reports regarding casualties,” adding that the incident is under further review.
In recent months, hundreds of people have been reported killed in repeated incidents of shooting near the aid centers run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Almost 80,000 displaced by southern Syria violence, UN says
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Nearly 80,000 people have been displaced by sectarian violence in southern Syria that began last week, the UN’s migration agency says.
In a statement, the International Organization for Migration says “79,339 people have been displaced since 13 July, including 20,019 on 17 July,” adding that water, electricity, and telecomms services in Sweida had “collapsed” and fuel shortages had crippled transportation and emergency logistics.
Sweida hospital morgue full, received over 400 bodies since Monday, doctor says
Gaza and the South
Palestinian Bedouins accuse settlers of killing 117 sheep in Jordan Valley
Palestinian media outlets report that settlers arrived last night at the village of Al-Malih, a Bedouin community in the northern Jordan Valley, and killed 117 heads of livestock belonging to the residents.
Al-Araby TV also reports that an additional 400 heads of livestock were stolen.
The police have yet to issue a response.
The army did not respond to a request for comment.
Veterinarians were called in to treat a handful of sheep that had survived the knife and gun attack, some of the animals shaking uncontrollably and in apparent shock.
- Lebanese sue senior Hezbollah leader for 'endangering Lebanon's security'
Legal claims accuse top Hezbollah officials of incitement, storing weapons near civilians and threatening national stability amid growing public pushback
Legal complaints have been filed in Lebanon against senior Hezbollah figures, accusing them of endangering the country’s security and threatening the lives of Lebanese citizens, according to a report by the Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.The most recent lawsuit was submitted by Lebanese parliamentarian Sami Jumblatt, a member of the Christian Phalangist party, targeting Faisal Shukr, Hezbollah’s head of the Bekaa region. The charges include incitement to murder, incitement to violence, incitement to sectarian strife and endangering Lebanon’s security, sovereignty, unity or borders.In addition, complaints have been filed against Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem by lawyers, journalists and activists. These legal actions follow statements he made during the Israel-Iran conflict, where he expressed full support for Iran. Plaintiffs described Qassem’s remarks as a direct threat to state policy, encouragement of rebellion and a danger to the security of the Lebanese people.While the lawsuits may not immediately lead to legal proceedings, the report highlighted their significance in breaking the climate of fear among Lebanese citizens who had previously been reluctant to pursue such cases.
- From raids to ransom: Israel’s hostage policy has become Hamas’s sharpest weapon
Leaders once chose rescues over negotiations. But for 50 years, public pressure and new terror tactics have led Israel to pay ever steeper prices — and that’s unlikely to changeWhen nearly 6,000 terrorists from Hamas and other Gaza-based groups invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, they came not only to kill but to capture.
By nightfall, they had dragged 251 people back to the Gaza Strip: soldiers from their bases, mothers, toddlers and pensioners from their saferooms, even Thai farmhands.
“This large-scale kidnapping was a deliberate strategy,” said Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University.
It was, in a sense, a proven strategy. Hostage-taking had for decades forced Israel to make major concessions, primarily the release of hardened terrorists.
Yahya Sinwar, the architect of October 7, learned this firsthand when, in 2011, he walked free from prison as one of 1,027 terrorists traded by Israel for captured soldier Gilad Shalit. In 1985, Sinwar’s mentor and Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, found his freedom the same way: Israel traded him and 1,150 other security prisoners for three captured IDF soldiers.
Jerusalem’s commitment to returning its captives from enemy hands — espoused by prime ministers, IDF veterans, hostage families and religious scholars — is a constant throughout the Jewish state’s history. But how Israel frees its hostages has evolved during the country’s 77 years, from straightforward POW exchanges to dramatic rescues to, more recently, lopsided swaps that set hundreds of terrorists free.
Now, for nearly two years, Israel has found itself in its largest and most complex hostage crisis yet. To secure the release of the vast majority of the hostages taken on October 7, Israel agreed to multiple deals that paused its campaign against Hamas and freed thousands of prisoners, including those with blood on their hands. Many believe Israel will have to do so again to get the remaining captives home.
Palestinian terrorists kidnap Yarden Bibas, center, from Kibbutz Nir Oz into the Gaza Strip, on October 7, 2023. (Hatem Ali/ AP)Hamas’s leaders predicted, correctly, that Israel would pay the price, multiple analysts say. The Israeli public also seemed to take as a given that dozens of prisoners would be released for every hostage. In the two-month ceasefire that began in January, Israel released almost 2,000 terrorists and other prisoners in exchange for 30 living hostages and the bodies of eight more.
However, Israel didn’t always act this way. How did the Jewish state become accustomed to releasing masses of terrorists in exchange for a small number of hostages — even when doing so could place the lives of its citizens in peril?
Early exchanges
Israel’s lopsided trades began in the 1950s on the battlefield, when thousands of Arab prisoners of war were swapped for small groups of Israeli soldiers. After the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Israel traded 5,500 Egyptians for four Israelis. Following the 1967 Six Day War, nearly 7,000 Arab POWs were released for 15 captured Israelis, and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, some 8,000 Arabs were released for nearly 300 Israelis.
Though lopsided due to the stunning success of IDF ground operations, the swaps were relatively straightforward state-to-state arrangements governed by the conventions of international warfare.
“While Israel held the upper hand in terms of the sheer number of enemy soldiers it captured compared to the small number of Israeli prisoners held by the other side, this advantage was not reflected in negotiations,” wrote international relations expert Noa Lazimi in a 2023 Hebrew-language report on Israeli POW policy. In addition to the formal and legal nature of the exchanges, “this was largely due to Israel’s determination to bring conflicts to a close and accelerate the return of its captives — an imperative rooted in a formative value of the Jewish national ethos.”
Colonel (Res.) Doron Hadar, commander of the IDF’s General Staff Negotiation Unit from 2007 until February 2024, acknowledged this value as a core principle in an interview with The Times of Israel: “Israel’s approach to hostages stands on two pillars: The Jewish value of redeeming captives, and every soldier’s belief that Israel will bring them home,” he said.
The early prisoner swaps reflected this ethos and helped cement in the public mind a perceived “equation of sorts,” Hadar said, namely that the return of an Israeli soldier was worth the release of many enemy prisoners.
Israel’s tactics anticipated the lopsided ratio: Former general and future prime minister Ariel Sharon acknowledged in 2000 that during the 1950s — after terror attacks at home and through reprisal raids in Arab countries — Israel built a “prisoner bank,” holding enemy detainees as bargaining chips for future abductions.
Jubilant Israeli troops in Sinai, Egypt, during the Six Day War, on June 10, 1967. (AP Photo, File)In 1954, the policy led some Israeli leaders to consider drastic steps. After a botched IDF mission near the Golan Heights left five Israeli soldiers in Syrian hands, defense minister Pinchas Lavon green-lighted seizing a Syrian military aircraft as a bargaining chip. IDF chief of staff Moshe Dayan went further, ordering the air force to intercept a Damascus-Cairo civilian flight and trade its passengers for the captives. But prime minister Moshe Sharett intervened to veto the plan, ruling that civilians were off-limits.
Back in Syria, one of the captives — 19-year-old Uri Ilan — was falsely told his comrades had been executed. Determined not to give up military secrets under torture, he hanged himself, hiding a Hebrew note in his uniform reading, “Lo Bagadti” (I did not betray). Two years after their abduction, Israel ultimately handed over 41 Syrian prisoners, most taken in prior IDF raids, for the four surviving soldiers and the body of Ilan, whose suicide note made him a national hero.
An early precedent had been set, cemented in the bond between state and soldier: No captive is abandoned, dead or alive, even when the price is steep.
Force comes first: The Rabin doctrine
Israel’s determination to bring back all its captives did not go unnoticed by its enemies.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, the country faced a wave of Palestinian terrorism characterized by both mass-casualty attacks and barricaded hostage situations, in which terrorists seized control of confined civilian spaces such as airplanes, schools, buses and hotels, and held those inside as bargaining chips.
Armed Palestinian secular nationalist groups, including Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), increasingly turned to such tactics, hoping to belittle Israel and force concessions.
Dr. George Habash leader of the Front for Liberation during his speech at the Palestine National Council in Club des Pins Palace near Algiers, February 17, 1983. (AP Photo/Michel Lipchitz)PFLP co-founder George Habash, a Marxist, believed that dramatic, high-profile acts of terror would bring international attention to the Palestinian cause.
In mid-1968, when Israel’s adversaries were still reeling from the Six Day War, the PFLP managed the only successful hijacking of an El Al plane in history, diverting a carrier to Algeria and holding its crew plus the male Jewish passengers as hostages. Israel ultimately freed 16 convicted terrorists in exchange for the passengers, but waited three weeks before doing so, disguising the concession as a goodwill gesture to Algeria.
In an interview with Israel Hayom last year, 82-year-old Avner Slapak — one of the El Al hijacking survivors — discussed both the hostages’ faith in their government’s determination to bring them home, and their aversion to rewarding terror: “We were 12 men who were taken captive, and only one of us spoke about the possibility of a prisoner exchange. All the others, including me, agreed that the bastards who had abducted us did not deserve the prize of having even a single murderer released in return for us. All the time we said, ‘The government of Israel will ensure that we are released.’”
Throughout the 1970s, Israel adopted a stricter stance against negotiating with terrorists, led primarily by then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was in office from 1974 to 1977. This hardline policy, later known as the “Rabin Doctrine,” emphasized rescue operations over negotiations, even at the risk of losing Israeli lives.
In early 1974, a last-minute decision by prime minister Golda Meir to storm a school in Ma’alot, where Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists had taken over 100 students hostage, saved many children but left a quarter of the young captives dead. The tragedy led to the creation of the Yamam, Israel’s elite counterterrorism unit, among other reforms.
The following year, eight hostages and three soldiers died during a rescue operation at the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv. Seven of the eight terrorists were killed, while the remaining one was captured and later freed in the same 1985 deal that released Yassin. Three years later, 38 out of 71 captive civilians, 13 of them children, were killed by a group of 11 Fatah terrorists during the Coastal Road bus massacre, before troops eliminated most of the perpetrators.
The doctrine’s defining moment came in the 1976 Entebbe operation. When Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked an Air France flight and diverted it to Uganda, holding its Jewish and Israeli passengers at gunpoint, Rabin wavered between negotiation and force. Ultimately, he sent elite Sayeret Matkal commandos over 3,500 kilometers (2,500 miles) to Entebbe Airport, where they freed more than 100 hostages.
Though the raid cost the lives of three captives and Yoni Netanyahu, the mission commander and elder brother of the current premier, the operation was celebrated. Its success cemented Israel’s preference for armed rescue over bargaining whenever a military option exists.
In response to the Rabin Doctrine, Palestinian terrorists initially reduced their demands in hostage crises. The lighter demands, rather than being a concession, aimed to disincentivize military rescues, and to heighten Israeli public backlash if the rescues failed.
When Israel still refused to yield, terrorists shifted their tactics to ensure that the IDF could not come to the rescue.
Shai Gross, 6, returns to Israel after Operation Thunderbolt, the Israeli rescue of over 100 hostages from the Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 4, 1976, after an airplane hijacking by Palestinian terrorists. (Courtesy)‘A slippery slope’
In the late 1970s and 1980s, Palestinian terror groups began spiriting Israeli hostages — mostly soldiers — deep into enemy territory, making successful commando raids extremely risky, if not impossible.
“Without the option of implementing the Rabin Doctrine’s military rescue option, Israel found itself negotiating for the release of hostages,” Ganor explained. “Israeli decision-makers found themselves on a slippery slope.”
A turning point came in 1978. During Operation Litani, Israeli reservist Avraham Amram was captured by the PFLP and held in Lebanon for 340 days. Tortured and suicidal in captivity, Amram was eventually freed through a Red Cross-mediated exchange for 76 Palestinian security prisoners. The deal was approved as Israel pursued peace talks with Egypt.
From that point on, Israel routinely released dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of prisoners in exchange for small numbers of Israeli captives, and sometimes for their remains. Groups such as Fatah, the PFLP, the DFLP, Hamas and Hezbollah all exploited the trend.
In 1982, during the First Lebanon War, eight Israeli soldiers were captured from their post by terrorists. Fatah held six, and two were handed to the PFLP General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril. A year later, prime minister Yitzhak Shamir’s government released over 4,700 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners for the six held by Fatah.
PFLP-GC chief Ahmed Jibril (right) pictured with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in May 2002. (photo credit: AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)A sense of urgency seemed to grip Israeli decision-makers: “We paid a high price for the six,” Shamir told reporters at the time, “but we were faced with the fact that their lives were in peril, and that at any moment the worst could happen.”
The price of Israeli captives remained high in 1985 with the Jibril Agreement, when Israel traded 1,150 terrorists — including 380 serving life sentences, such as Yassin and a Japanese terrorist who participated in a Tel Aviv attack that killed 26 people — for the remaining two soldiers held by the PFLP–GC, along with an additional captive taken during the Lebanon War.
The decision aligned with Rabin’s policy of trading prisoners for hostages when rescue wasn’t possible. But because it set arch-terrorists free, it created a new reality and, according to Ganor, set a dangerous precedent.
Then-premier Shimon Peres acknowledged that the price was dear, but emotion seemed to tip the scales. He told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee at the time that while “the decision to exchange terrorists was one of the most difficult…when meeting with the families, a lot of criteria were given a new dimension. It was so hard to see them suffer, so difficult.”
Defense minister Yitzhak Rabin (right) and prime minister Shimon Peres on a flight over Lebanon, in 1984. (Nati Harnik / GPO)In another sign of things to come, public pressure may have also played a role. The families of the hostages had been rallying the public to help retrieve their children, including Miriam Grof, mother of captured soldier Yoske Grof, who launched a relentless campaign to shake hardened senior officials.
“It is difficult to explain, but only someone who met that woman could understand how she filled everyone with a deep, blood-boiling, paralyzing sense of shame,” Eitan Haber, a well-known Israeli military correspondent and former senior aide to Rabin, told the New York Times in 2011. “We are speaking about three very tough men [Rabin, Peres, and Shamir] who had no problems saying no, but simply could not stand up to Mrs. Grof… Her aggressiveness was not of this world. She broke them all down.”
For her part, Grof told POW support group Erim Balaila, Hebrew for “awake at night,” in 2007: “I didn’t want and I still don’t want to be a hero. All I wanted was one thing: to return my son safely home.”
Some decision-makers later regretted their support for the deal. Former defense minister Moshe Arens, who was a minister without portfolio at the time, wrote in his 2018 memoir: “I voted for the [Jibril] agreement — and regret it to this day… The immediate sense of relief… always seemed to take precedence over the potential long-term danger.”
Perhaps bruised by the fallout, Israel refused to meet demands for captured pilot Ron Arad, taken in 1986 by the Lebanese Amal terror group and later held by Hezbollah. Arad was never returned and is presumed dead. His unresolved case became a national scar invoked in hostage crises since, including today’s.
Udi Goren, whose cousin, Tal Haimi, was murdered and abducted by Hamas on October 7, told The Times of Israel, “If until October 7 we had just one Ron Arad, who was already a deep wound in Israeli society,” then if the government fails to return all the Gaza hostages, “we are going to have many Ron Arads.”
A Palestinian playing the role of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit sits in a makeshift cage to mark the fifth anniversary of Shalit’s capture by Palestinian terrorists, in Jabalya northern Gaza, June 25, 2011. (REUTERS/Mohammed Salem)
Shamgar and ShalitDespite the Arad exception, the trend of lopsided prisoner exchanges persisted. In January 2004, Sharon released over 430 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in exchange for businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum — who had been kidnapped by Hezbollah after being lured into a drug deal in Dubai — as well as the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.
In the months before the Shalit deal was completed in 2011, the Tannenbaum deal was raised in the debate over the release of terrorists in exchange for hostages. Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan criticized proposals to swap a large number of prisoners for Shalit, claiming that “Two hundred thirty-one Israelis were slaughtered by those freed in the Tannenbaum exchange.” Netanyahu, presiding over the crisis during his second term as premier in 2011, publicly stated, “Those released in the Tannenbaum deal murdered 27 Israelis since 2004.”
Against the backdrop of the Shalit debate, there were attempts to formally curtail the pattern of massive prisoner swaps. In 2008, Israel convened the Shamgar Commission, headed by former chief justice Meir Shamgar, to codify clear hostage negotiation guidelines. Its classified recommendations reportedly urged equal exchanges, minimal contact between the political echelon and the families of hostages to minimize emotional appeal, and worsening conditions for terrorists in Israeli prisons to increase leverage. The report was submitted to the Defense Ministry after Shalit’s release, but was never adopted.
Despite the policy debate, hostage-prisoner exchanges reached an unprecedentedly uneven ratio. Five years after Hamas and other Gaza-based groups snuck across the border and dragged Shalit from his tank into the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu approved the most dramatic swap in Israeli history. Following years of public campaigning by Shalit’s family and crowds of supporters, the 25-year-old soldier was freed in exchange for 1,027 terrorists, including Sinwar and over 300 others serving life terms. About half the prisoners were collectively responsible for terrorist attacks in which 569 Israelis were murdered.
Ganor, who advised Netanyahu on his 2001 book “Fighting Terrorism,” acknowledged that many saw the premier’s motivations as primarily political. At the same time, he sympathized with the difficulty of decision-makers in hostage crises: “If Bibi simply had the job of being a counterterrorism expert, like me, it’s easy to take a very clear and tough position on what should not be done — and probably rightly so. But when you carry the weight of real hostages on your shoulders, your perspective changes.”
Gilad Shalit salutes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after landing at an IDF airbase in central Israel on October 18, 2011, after he was freed from more than five years in Hamas captivity in Gaza. (Israel Defense Forces)
Gilad Shalit salutes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after landing at an IDF airbase in central Israel on October 18, 2011, after he was freed from more than five years in Hamas captivity in Gaza. (Israel Defense Forces)
October 7The lengths Israel will go to free its hostages and the motivation of Hamas to empty Israel’s jail cells continue to play off one another. One of the terror group’s main goals on October 7 “was to capture soldiers and civilians to get back prisoners,” Hadar explained, noting that before the attack, “one of the top issues on the Gazan public’s mind was the thousands of security prisoners held by Israel.”
After October 7, calls to revive the spirit of the Shamgar Commission for hostage policy reform resurfaced for some activists. Families bereaved of terror victims and the advocacy group Almagor petitioned the High Court to bar any new mega-swap, with one family member claiming that “the Shalit deal gave birth to October 7.” The justices declined to intervene.
Hamas’s goal of releasing prisoners has already paid off. Yoram Schweitzer, an analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies and former IDF intelligence officer who advised the Shalit talks, pointed out: “We’ve already released around 2,300 prisoners during the war in the past two hostage deals, some 280 of them who were serving lifetime sentences.” He added that Hamas “still has a veteran list of lifers it very much wants to set free.”
Despite resistance from defense officials, Netanyahu defended the Shalit deal at the time of its approval, citing the national memory of Ron Arad and the lifelong anguish of the lost pilot’s mother.
“I thought of Gilad and the five years that he spent rotting away in a Hamas cell,” he said. “I did not want his fate to be that of Ron Arad… I remembered the noble Batya Arad… her concern for her son Ron, right up until her passing… At such moments, a leader finds himself alone and must make a decision. I considered — and I decided.”
Freeing the fifty
Now, with 50 hostages still in Gaza — including 20 believed to be alive and the remains of a soldier taken in 2014 — Netanyahu must decide again, but with far more than a single captured soldier on the line.
Doron Katz-Asher and her two young daughters Raz, 4, and Aviv, 2, are reunited with husband and father Yoni, on November 25, 2023. Doron, Raz and Aviv were taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023. (Schneider Children’s Hospital)Following the unprecedented trauma of October 7 and its aftermath, surveys show the dominant public demand is to bring everyone home, not only by freeing more terrorists but by potentially stopping the war without a decisive defeat of Hamas.
The terror group released 105 civilians as part of a truce deal and four others outside any official framework in 2023, another 38 captives during a 42-day ceasefire that ended in March, and a dual US-Israeli hostage in May. Israel has also rescued eight captives in military raids and recovered 49 bodies. Since March, hostage-ceasefire talks have largely been at a standstill, mainly over the issue of bringing a permanent end to the war, though the sides have reported new momentum in recent weeks as US President Donald Trump has pushed for an end to the fighting.
For many, the established practice of returning hostages even at great cost must prevail, especially in light of the unprecedented trauma of October 7.
Following the unprecedented trauma of October 7 and its aftermath, surveys show the dominant public demand is to bring everyone home, not only by freeing more terrorists but by potentially stopping the war without a decisive defeat of Hamas.
The terror group released 105 civilians as part of a truce deal and four others outside any official framework in 2023, another 38 captives during a 42-day ceasefire that ended in March, and a dual US-Israeli hostage in May. Israel has also rescued eight captives in military raids and recovered 49 bodies. Since March, hostage-ceasefire talks have largely been at a standstill, mainly over the issue of bringing a permanent end to the war, though the sides have reported new momentum in recent weeks as US President Donald Trump has pushed for an end to the fighting.
For many, the established practice of returning hostages even at great cost must prevail, especially in light of the unprecedented trauma of October 7.
President Isaac Herzog (right) meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, July 6, 2025. On the table is a picture of the hostages held in Gaza. (Haim Zach/GPO)Goren, a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, representing the majority of the hostages’ families, warned that failing to return all the captives would equal “dismantling the IDF’s value system, the Zionist ethos that ‘no one is left behind.’ It’s already happening now.”
In contrast, Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, a former IDF general who spent over 42 years in uniform and oversaw the IDF pullout from Gaza in 2005, does not consider failure to return all the hostages to be detrimental to Israel’s morale.
Hacohen cautioned against absolute slogans like “Bring Them Home Now.”
“Strategy is all about flexibility,” he said. “Yes, war involves terrible prices, but we are a strong nation, and we can absorb them. We must reassess daily: defeat Hamas and save the hostages, but not at any cost. War demands a broader perspective.”
Tvika MorThe hostages’ families in the Tikvah Forum, led by Tzvika Mor, father of hostage Eitan Mor, push Israel to exercise force over demonstrating flexibility, and call for a relentless IDF campaign until Hamas capitulates to a single comprehensive deal.“We demand political, military, and humanitarian pressure on Hamas to bring everyone home — together,” Mor told The Times of Israel. Tikvah Forum spokesman Benaya Cherlow praised hostages’ relatives willing to “put national security above their own grief” by resisting an immediate ceasefire or demands to end the war.
Every path has its costs. Refusing to meet Hamas’s demands leaves behind 50 hostages, including the 20 living captives in mortal danger, while releasing terrorists and failing to crush Hamas may put many future Israelis in harm’s way.
To the advocates of the competing policies, it’s not only the lives of Israelis that hang in the balance. It is also a matter of what kind of Israel emerges when the last hostage finally comes home — or doesn’t. link
The Israeli public sacrifices everything – and knows nothing
Israel is immersed in a sea of question marks without answers – from the operation in Iran to the fate of the hostages • When the government does not tell the public what is really happening, Israelis find themselves trying to decipher hints instead of receiving basic information about the moves being made in their name • The public is already exhausted and at a loss, but there is one central problem, the solution to which could release all other fronts • Opinion
If there is one thing that characterizes the state of the nation these days, it is the feeling that we are immersed in a sea of question marks.
The Air Force carried out a successful operation in Iran – but as of now, it is not known whether the Iranian nuclear program was dismantled, whether all the enriched uranium was destroyed, or if some remains and is hidden somewhere in Iran? No one knows what the political ramifications of the Air Force's success will be either, or where this success will lead.
For an entire week, the Prime Minister stayed in Washington with his family and aides, spoke at length with the President of the United States, and no one knows what was said there. All the more so, no one knows what was decided, and what the outcomes will be.
What is behind the slogan “total victory”? How is it defined or explained? No one has a clue. What is “intense fighting,” and where does it lead? What are five divisions still doing in Gaza even now? Will a military government be established in the Strip, and if so – will this lead to the expulsion of Palestinians and Jewish settlement throughout the Strip? Why are the residents, who were once pioneers of Zionism, not returning to their homes in the Gaza Envelope? And when will those who for many years guarded our northern border and brought prosperity to the Galilee fully return to their normal routine?
(Archive) | Photo: Reuters
Will a partial hostage deal be carried out, whose future is unknown, or a full deal that will include an end to the fighting? What is the physical and mental state of the hostages? How many of them will survive? Who will be included in the first group of those released? And will the others remain alive? Where are the bodies of the hostages who were murdered hidden or buried?
What has become of normalization with the countries of the region, which not long ago seemed one step from realization? Will the United States continue to promote the peace path with Saudi Arabia, or adopt Netanyahu’s war strategy? Will Israel sink into a deep constitutional crisis? Will the Knesset succeed in recruiting the ultra-Orthodox public as required for security challenges? Instead of answers, we are flooded with partial and sometimes even misleading information.
Amid this sea of questions, the Israeli public is exhausted and at a loss. The ordinary citizen does not know what is behind the flood of misleading information, what is really happening, and where the nation is headed. This is, among other things, the reason for the sense of distress that accompanies many.
What, then, can be done? When large systems – organizational, technical, or computerized – get entangled in a series of malfunctions that undermine the system, leadership is required to act wisely. The common mistake is to rush to partial solutions, those that seemingly seem more available and easier to implement. Worst of all is choosing the frequent alternative – to do nothing or to provide a response to the problem that serves, first and foremost, political interests.
In a large system, caught in entanglements of questions and problems, there is one point whose solution triggers a chain of solutions to all the other problems. In Israel’s case, the immediate end to the fighting in Gaza and the return of all the hostages in a deal could release blockages and begin a chain reaction. Questions such as the return of Gaza Envelope residents to their homes would resolve themselves, diplomacy – such as a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia – would be revived, breathing positive momentum into the diplomatic arena and drawing countries to join. Even the destructive rift that threatens Israeli society from within would diminish.
As long as the question marks multiply and answers are postponed, an entire country stands helpless in the face of a future shrouded in fog.
Major General (res.) Eitan Ben Eliyahu is a former commander of the Israeli Air Force. link
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Acronyms and Glossary
ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague
IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague
MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp
PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen
PMO- Prime Minister's Office
UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission
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