Despite the methodical destruction of Gaza, despite the thousands of fighters eliminated among the approximately 42,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army, despite the military and technological superiority of the Jewish State, 101 hostages remain in the hands of Hamas, a year after being released. kidnapped during the large-scale attack on October 7. A reality that has become a nightmare for families and a large part of Israelis, who demand their return.
Hamas took 251 hostages on October 7. Of them, 117 were freed, most as part of a captive exchange carried out in November 2023. Among those still in the hands of Hamas and its allies, Barely forty are alive today, according to an Israeli source familiar with negotiations with the Islamist movement. Eleven detainees are soldiers, including five women. Israeli authorities say a total of 70 hostages were killed, 33 of whom are still in Gaza. The army recovered 37 bodies of hostages who died in captivity in unknown conditions or who had been brought dead to Gaza. Three hostages were shot dead by Israeli soldiers, who mistook them for Palestinians.
To the 97 hostages still in the hands of their captors, there are four people, captured before October 7, two of whom are still presumed alive. Since the end of the truce, the 1Ahem As of December 2023, only seven hostages were released alive during Israeli army operations.
Negotiations, under the auspices of Qatar, Egypt and the United States, to free them have never stopped. They always stagnated. The main culprits for this failure are Yahya Sinouar, architect of the October 7 massacre and leader of Hamas since the elimination of Ismaïl Haniyeh, its previous leader, murdered in Tehran in an explosion attributed to Israel on July 31. And Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, who said on Monday, October 7, 2024: “ “We are obliged to bring back the hostages.” has periodically slowed down the progress made by its negotiators. This while the return of prisoners and those killed in combat is one of the cardinal values of the State of Israel.
“Do everything we can”
On the day of the attack, only during his third statement, late at night, did the Prime Minister mention the word “hostages”in speeches where the terms dominate ” destruction “ AND ” revenge “ : “We will destroy [le Hamas] and we will avenge with force this dark day that has been imposed on the State of Israel and its citizens. As Bialik wrote [considéré comme le poète national d’Israël] : “Revenge for the blood of a little child, Satan has not invented it yet.” »
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