The October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on civilians was a manipulation. Killing, raping and torturing civilians while streaming their actions on cell phones was designed to create outrage. Hamas wanted to lure the IDF into Gaza where civilian casualties were bound to result. To this end they returned home with hostages and hid among their civilians. They didn’t attempt to stop the Israelis before they entered the region.
The hope of billionaire (NY Post) Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mershaal was other Arab nations would attack Israel once the invasion of Gaza began. Then the Jews could wiped out and Hamas would rule the entire country. These leaders would be even wealthier. This didn’t happen and they, or their masters, are now forced to rethink their strategy.
Not returning all the hostages will keep this conflict going. Releasing some of the children and elderly is a ploy to polish their image. Another ploy is handing off hostages to other groups. This will keep these groups guiltily loyal and prevent them from turning on their Hamas overlords. It is possible one of these other groups could be elevated to power with the assistance of Israel; Hamas doesn’t like that.
There are an estimated 20K more Hamas terrorists hiding in Gaza. The Israelis cannot risk a larger repeat of October 7th in the future.
You know what line goes here.
As events are unfolding some other religious extremists of the Jewish kind are actively sabotaging Israels efforts. Junior Knesset member Amihai Eliyahu of the religious right Otzma Yehudit party displayed an openness to using the nuclear option on Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu was stopped from dismissing him by Itamar Ben Gvir, but banned him from meetings for the near future (The Guardian). Ben Gvir is the Minister of Security, the organization that dropped the ball when Egypt warned of an impending Hamas attack 3 days prior to the event.
Ben Gvir’s leverage comes from the coalition between Likud and Otzma Yehudit that put Netanyahu in the Prime Minister post.
Bonus points for researching the characters above.