After a long wait of 15 months, the families of the Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7 who remain in the hands of Hamas can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The ceasefire agreed this week between Israel and the ruling Islamist organization Loop It will have three phases and will involve the exchange of 33 hostages in exchange for 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. However, according to sources cited by the Israeli newspaper ‘Haaretz’, The number of Palestinians released will depend on the status of Israeli captives.
This figure will be key. And the hostage war is a distressing reality that has been repeated over and over again throughout the history of Israel and that It is already part of the country’s collective memory. That is why the idea that Etienne Dignat, a hostage expert at the Center for International Research (CERI), explains in an essay survives: whatever the price of return, the hostages must return ‘home’, alive or dead.
Until this return occurs, there is torment that can last for years and that sometimes has a disastrous outcome. Before October 7, Israel had in its history the return of up to 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 19 living Israelis and eight corpses.
A woman walks past a mural with posters of Israeli kidnapped people
One of the most controversial cases was in 2011. When, through Egyptian mediation, Israel agreed to release 1,028 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of just one of its soldiers. His name was Gilad Shalit and he had five years retained in the Gaza Strip. He became the first Israeli soldier to return alive in 26 years. At first, if the numbers are only superficially assessed, the arithmetic may seem unremarkable and that Israel has compromised with important concessions.
But looking more closely, it means understanding something deeper that every Israeli takes for granted: the rescue of the captives is in the heart of the country. There is an unwritten pact between the people and the State that makes this objective a supreme necessity.
«Daughters and sons of all»
In Israel it is very common to hear that someone has an acquaintance or family member who has gone through that experience. It is a small country and This issue ends up being something personal. In that case, safeguarding the integrity of each citizen is an indisputable requirement.
But to understand everything, Dignat highlights that this is a country where mandatory conscription is implemented and each family of a young Jewish citizen who performs military service is assured of the unfailing support of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). These guarantee the return and Soldiers are like “everyone’s daughters and sons.”
A clear example of this happened in 2004: Israel released almost 450 prisoners to obtain the release of a civilian, Elhanan Tannenbaum, held for three yearsand the bodies of three soldiers killed in combat held by Hezbollah.
‘Boomerang threat’
However, these exchanges have not been without debate within Israel. When Ron Arada lieutenant in the Israeli air forces, was captured by the Lebanese Amal militia, numerous searches were carried out without any success. However, his relatives urged the Government to stop making concessions in exchange for recovering his body or those of other dead people.
There are voices that speak of the ‘boomerang threat’, and that the message is sent that kidnapping Israelis is ‘very beneficial’. That is why some have tried to raise new unofficial red lines, since, as Israeli diplomat Raphaël Morav has pointed out, the future threat is that those Palestinian prisoners do not return to Gaza to found a family and live in peace, but to return to the spiral of terrorism.
The Hebrew State tried to change its doctrine. In the early 2010s, he created the so-called Shamgar commissionto establish limits on rescues. And there was talk of the ‘Aníbal procedure’ with the soldiers, a directive made public in 2003 through a journalistic investigation, according to the expert Dignat. In the case of kidnapping, it can lead to an attempt to save the hostage by creating chaos, although this implies a greater risk to the soldier’s life, or “the soldier would be sacrificed so as not to be used as a bargaining chip.”
“Whoever delays the rescue of the prisoner is the same as a murderer”
Vincent Lemire, professor at the Gustave-Eiffel University of Paris and former director of the French Research Center in Jerusalem, explains that in France or the United States It is a sovereign mandate to recover the hostagesbut «when this is not possible, the State itself is not questioned. In Israel, yes it does. The underlying warning, he points out, is that any cabinet that does not consider it a priority issue pay a price.
Hostage taking is a fear that “It’s in our DNA”Gideon Raff, creator of the Israeli series ‘Kidnapped’, on which the series ‘Homeland’ was based, pointed out to ‘Le Monde’. In this way, they have gone through a list of demands from Black September, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLO) or Hamas. This has meant carrying out numerous rescue operations. In some, even Israel’s own Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been involved when he was still a young soldier in a elite secret unit of the IDF, called Sayeret Matkal or unit 269.
In short, this idea of sacrificing everything to recover those captured is older than the State of Israel itself. The Amidah, the main prayer of the Jewish religious service that can be recited three times a day, talks about the liberation of the captives. And Rabbi Joseph Caro wrote eight centuries ago that qHe who delays the rescue of the prisoner is the same as a murderer.
#hostage #war #heart #Israel #reason #exchange #dozens #captives #thousands #Palestinian #prisoners