How Gaza hostage-release drama works for both Hamas and Netanyahu
| Tel Aviv, Israel
For Israelis, the sight of white pickup trucks filled with armed Hamas men is a terrifying reminder of the deadliest day in their history, when Islamic militants broke through the Gaza border to massacre civilians and soldiers and to seize about 250 people as hostages.
Similar images have been seen as Hamas choreographs the dramatic release of hostages under its ceasefire deal with Israel and as it seeks to demonstrate, to Palestinians and the world, that it has survived Israel’s crushing war and remains in power.
On Thursday, the most chaotic and harrowing scene yet unfolded during the hostage handover by Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group, in front of the Khan Yunis home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Arbel Yehud, a civilian captured from her kibbutz, was surrounded by masked, armed gunmen as they escorted her through a crush of thousands of Gaza residents. It took almost an hour to confirm that she, another Israeli civilian, and five Thai hostages were safely in Red Cross hands.
Why We Wrote This
The stage-managed spectacle of Israeli hostages being released in Gaza serves political interests on both sides. As Hamas asserts that it is still in power, it bolsters the argument that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still has a job to do.
Yet even as those images elicit a collective shudder from Israelis, they paradoxically offer a political lifeline to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had vowed to eliminate Hamas.
Most of the Israeli public, riveted by the emotional reunions of hostages and their families, is demanding that the ceasefire continues. But there is rising concern that Mr. Netanyahu might not finalize future phases of the deal in order to save his far-right coalition, whose members largely abhor that the agreement stipulates a full military withdrawal from Gaza.
The argument is that Mr. Netanyahu could use Hamas’ presence as the only sovereign power in Gaza to his advantage, as cover for returning to war in the name of finally defeating the militants.
“The public does not matter in Netanyahu’s eyes,” says Uriel Abulof, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University. “It serves Netanyahu well that Hamas is holding fast, and on the rise in the West Bank as well. The stronger Hamas is, the stronger he can become.
“It is an alliance of radicals,” Professor Abulof continues. “As long as Hamas is on the other side, there is no partner for peace, and he can say, ‘You have me to counter their threats.’”
This is not a new playbook. It was Mr. Netanyahu who for years approved the Qatari government’s funneling of over a billion dollars into Gaza that supported Hamas, betting wrongly it would pacify them.
His arguably symbiotic relationship with Hamas goes back to his election in 1996, when he upset left-wing incumbent Shimon Peres following a spate of Hamas bombings, which Mr. Netanyahu said proved the peace process could not be trusted.
For the public today, the reality of the hostages’ return home alive supports the view that Israel must proceed to the final stages of the ceasefire deal.
“I suspect the cynical way the Netanyahu government is thinking is, ‘I brought back as many hostages as I can, but now I have to focus on the first aim of this war – the complete toppling of Hamas military and political control over the Gaza population,’” says Gayil Talshir, a political science lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Experts have long warned it’s impossible to fully eradicate Hamas as long as Israel continues to refuse a “day after” plan that includes alternative Gaza leadership. Under former President Joe Biden, the United States pushed for a new political and security force for Gaza, backed by Arab states, that would be led by a reformed Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank.
President Donald Trump says he has called on Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza, which both countries and the Palestinian Authority reject, and spoken of the need to “clean out” the coastal enclave.
For now, the failure to formulate a plan to replace Hamas in Gaza means the militant group will be able to maintain its grip there and, many Israelis fear, rebuild the same tunnel network and weapons cache that allowed the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in the first place.
If the ceasefire collapses and Israel resumes fighting, it would be in different conditions now that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have begun returning to the northern Gaza Strip to what is left of their decimated homes.
“Once these masses are back in the north, Israel won’t be able to move them like they did in the beginning of the war,” says Yaakov Katz, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, adding they will not be able to resume the fighting at that same high-intensity level.
Politically, there’s also likely to be pushback from Israel’s reserve forces, many of whom have seen 200 or 300 days of combat and have returned to families and in some cases ailing businesses exhausted and burned out.
“I think people have had enough,” says Ofir Dayan, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank who describes herself as a right-wing voter disillusioned with Mr. Netanyahu.
“Netanyahu wants total victory, but I rather he focus on actual things on the ground than slogans. ‘Total victory’ comes when there’s a victor, not letting Hamas continue to rule Gaza,” says Ms. Dayan.
One possible spoiler to Mr. Netanyahu’s potential political lifeline of returning to fight Hamas in Gaza is President Trump, who is credited with applying massive pressure on the Israeli leader to accept the ceasefire deal worked out under Mr. Biden.
The open question is how much Mr. Trump will continue to apply pressure to complete the ceasefire – or let it unravel.
An indication came when the president’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, who met Thursday with Israeli Cabinet members, stopped at the Tel Aviv square that has become the center of the struggle to bring the hostages home. He spoke with relatives of those still in Gaza.
Family members quoted Mr. Witkoff as telling them, “Until the last hostage – we will bring them home.”
