BHARATA BHARATI

Diplomatic niceties need to be dispensed with as the Hamas terror group is repeatedly cocking a snook at the world while releasing hostages – Reshmi Dasgupta

There can be no more definitive proof of the times we live in than the images of the three emaciated Israeli hostages released yesterday, their gaunt cheeks and haunted eyes revealing the trauma of their 490 days of captivity as Red Cross personnel stood by and let Hamas terrorists parade them. Nor did the crowd—all presumably “innocent civilian” Gazans—watching that release spectacle seem in the least bit compassionate, much less remorseful.

It took the irrepressible US President Donald Trump to say what the international community and media deliberately have not: that the male hostages looked like the Holocaust survivors, 80 years after the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in Poland. There is a constant clamour for “humanitarian aid” to reach “suffering” Palestinians in Gaza, but no one demanded food and medical help for the injured, starving hostages.

Equally egregiously, there has been no conversation about, much less pressure on Hamas to come clean on, exactly how many of the abducted Israelis are already dead. Why keep families in Israel and around the world in a state of uncertainty? The fact that one of the men released this week has only found out now that his wife and daughters were both killed the day he was abducted nearly 500 days ago underscores the urgency of forcing Hamas to provide information.

A few days before, the world also watched as scores of masked and armed Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists swarmed around a lone, clearly frightened woman hostage. Roaring crowds captured her trauma and the masked men’s triumph on their phone cameras while Red Cross officials looked on helplessly as usual. The eyes of Arbel Yehud told a story that many do not want to hear, as it goes against the “oppressor-oppressed” binary that has permeated media coverage.

There were expectedly very few women in the roaring, belligerent crowd during the “exchanges”. Hardly any children too, at least not small ones, male or female. There may well be teenage boys among the black-clad terrorists surrounding the hostages. But all of them appeared to wholeheartedly support what happened—the attack, the murders, and the kidnappings—though Gaza’s “innocent civilians” have suffered the brunt of the fearsome Israeli retaliation since then.

The international media, often via the obliging phone cameras of Gazans, have so far not shown anyone from there expressing remorse or compassion for those killed or held hostage, although they are the same categories that invariably evoke concern when it comes to affected Palestinians—women, children, and old people. It is now known that several women hostages were placed with various “innocent civilian” Gazan families in their flats, but none helped them escape.

Then came the shocking revelation by the recently released British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari that she was held for a while in premises belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza. Israel has been saying all along that UNRWA staff was helping Hamas terrorists and has now banned it from operating on its sovereign territory, including East Jerusalem. But no one has called out UNRWA’s duplicity despite huge evidence of its Hamas connection.

In contrast to the emaciated men just released, the women hostages freed first in the ceasefire deal were meant to send a message because they presented a very different picture from Noa Argamani rescued by Israeli Defense Forces after 8 months. Argamani revealed she was allowed only two baths a month and little food and water. Last December, another released hostage, Ilan Gritzewsky, said her pelvis was broken, her leg burnt, her jaw dislocated, and her left ear damaged.

The women were clearly spruced up during the days preceding the handover, allowed to bathe and tie their hair and wear new military-style overalls in the case of the ones who were soldiers. They were probably given some medical attention too, though Damari has indicated she got no care for her severed fingers while in captivity. So their appearance when released was deceptive and meant to further win over the inexplicably naïve “international community”.

But the condition of the three men released this week corroborates the stories trickling out about the hostages’ ordeal that the coverage of the handovers in Gaza—stage-managed by Hamas as part of a propaganda offensive—rarely puts in context. Making the painfully thin Israeli men give little speeches before they were handed over to the Red Cross in the latest was particularly grotesque and reflects Hamas’ rising confidence that it has “won” the narrative war.

And well they might, considering major Western opinion makers avoid calling out Hamas and demand parity in humanitarian help. If Palestinians in Gaza are “starving”, the condition of the hostages must be far worse. Are they children of a lesser God? The families of hostages (those released as well as those still held in Gaza) demand that Israel get all of them back, but why has no one demanded Hamas return hostages in good health—or else?

Even the statement released by the Red Cross after these shameful hostage release “ceremonies” is anodyne, to say the least. “The ICRC is increasingly concerned about the conditions surrounding release operations. We strongly urge all parties, including the mediators, to take responsibility to ensure that future releases are dignified and private.” Surely that statement should have come long before? Why was Hamas even allowed to stage such propaganda spectacles?

And then there’s that elephant in the room: the masked Hamas terrorists who come out during the hostage releases with raised weapons leave no one in doubt that they will continue their violent campaign to destroy Israel and murder and maim as many Israelis as they can. Peace is far from their minds. How can they then be trusted to safeguard the health of their “innocent civilian” Palestinian brethren any better in the future than they have in the past 15 months?

If the next batches of Israeli hostages released appear in bad or worse shape or even dead, the “or else” threat will certainly be uttered by one man: Trump. And there is no denying that diplomatic niceties need to be dispensed with in particular situations. An openly violent terror group repeatedly cocking a snook at the world—the massacre of October 7, 2023, proved that beyond a reasonable doubt—is one of those situations. And only America holds the Trump card. – News18, 11 February 2025

› Reshmi Dasgupta is a freelance writer.

Filed under: gaza, israel, palestine | Tagged: donald trump, hamas, hostages in gaza, islamic jihad, palestinian terrorists | Comments Off on Hamas must be shown an ‘or else’ Trump card – Reshmi Dasgupta