By Hadassa Kalatizadeh

On October 7th, the Hamas terrorist organization, kidnapped 200 civilians from Israel-  including women, children and elderly–and has yet to release only four.  

 As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Hamas had well planned its offensive, and is holding onto the hostages to gain footing, extract more concessions, and delay Israels ground assault on Gaza.  Though international pressure has increased in recent days to release the civilian hostages, Hamas seems to be deliberately using the captives as a negotiation tool.  On Wednesday, the terror group told mediators it would be willing to release a larger group, which it claims is being held in Gaza, but doubled its demand for a steady flow of humanitarian aid, including fuel, and for Israel to reduce its airstrikes, per sources for the WSJ with knowledge of the talks. “It’s posturing and it’s to keep the negotiations alive,” said Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a U.S. policy fellow at al-Shabaka, a Palestinian policy institute in California. “What these piecemeal hostage releases do is that it buys time for Hamas and it chips away at this initial international support that Israel was enjoying.”  

By means of the hostages, Hamas is also delaying Israel’s ground invasion, which will allow them time to better prepare Gaza with traps and ammunition.  Also, as the clock ticks on, international support for Israel is beginning to fade.  On the Oct. 7th massacre some 1400 Israeli civilians were slaughtered in one day, but the international impression is starting to wane, due to the increase of Palestinian casualties in the now weeks-long-war.  Israel had cut off all incoming supplies of food, water, fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip, but has since made allowances.  

On Sunday, following the first pair of hostages released, Israel allowed the deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza.  Israel still opposed the shipment of fuel, however, fearing it will be weaponized. Per the WSJ, in recent days, Israel has come under more pressure from the U.S. and European officials to delay a ground operation to give more time for the hostage negotiations to proceed.  Even within Israel, the families of the hostages are urging the Israeli government, not to begin a land assault while the hostages are still in harms way, as their safety may be further jeopardized.   For its part, the Israeli military has called on Gaza residents to help find the hostages– promising money and protection to anyone who helps or gives useful information, as per a translation of a pamphlet distributed in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces.  

So far Hamas has released two Americans and then a pair of elderly Israeli women.  Per the WSJ, experts say Hamas, which still holds a whopping 200 captives, can slowly release several child or elderly hostages in exchange for aid.  The terror organization will still have plenty of Israeli soldier captives, in exchange for which it will try to free a large number of Palestinian prisoners – many of whom were jailed for terrorist activity.  “Eventually it is the soldiers, male and female, who are the core of the trade in those terms. So they have buffers. They have degrees of freedom of maneuver and they can draw time,” said Tamir Hayman, a reserve brigadier general in the Israeli army.  “They’re dripping them drop by drop to prolong the suffering of those families and Israeli society and to gain one more achievement to their campaign,” added Gen. Hayman.