Hamas has indicated it is currently unable to identify and track down 40 Israeli hostages needed for the first phase of a ceasefire deal, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the discussions, raising fears that more hostages may be dead than are publicly known.
That tends to happen after a WW2-level mass bombing and starvation campaign, yeah. Of course, the IOF already knew that. This was never about hostages.
Of course it never was. It was about optics positioning, glorified manipulative marketing for the normies and idealogues. To claim to not want to be bombing them back to the stone age and to drive them out.
There was a leaked intelligence paper/memo weeks ago that essentially showed that their entire master plan was to kick them, the Palestinians out of Gaza. Hoping some other country would take them. That is why they were pushing them south too.
CNN’s record of the conditions of the hostages also suggests there are fewer than 40 living hostages who meet the proposed criteria.
With Hamas appearing to be unable to reach 40 in the proposed categories, Israel has pushed for Hamas to fill out the initial release with younger male hostages, including soldiers, the Israeli official said.
The majority of the almost 100 hostages who remain alive are believed to be male IDF soldiers or men of military reserve age. Hamas is expected to try to use to them in later phases to try to negotiate more significant concessions, including more high-level prisoners and a permanent end to the war.
I'm sorry, I'm just going to repeat the relevant part again: The majority of the almost 100 hostages who remain alive are believed to be male IDF soldiers or men of military reserve age.
The majority of the almost 100 hostages who remain alive are believed to be male IDF soldiers or men of military reserve age.
The majority of the almost 100 hostages who remain alive are believed to be male IDF soldiers or men of military reserve age.
It means most of the hostages aren't "civilians" as many people claim. So they're more like POWs.
There aren't really many "civilians" in israel to begin with tbf, except children. Half the population are IDF conscripts, and most of the other half are fascist settlers and colonizers just the same. Those were the main casualties in the Oct 7 attack too.
Tends to happen when a military fucking carpet bombs everything.
The settler government cares more about killing the native Palestinians than they do about getting hostages back (well, more like POWs ig since most of them are IDF conscripts)
The framework that has been laid out by negotiators says that during a first six-week pause in the fighting, Hamas should release 40 of the remaining hostages, including all the women as well as sick and elderly men.
Hamas has told international mediators – which include Qatar and Egypt - it does not have 40 living hostages who match those criteria for release, both sources said.
The more than 250 hostages captured or killed on October 7 are believed to have been spread out among different members and factions of Hamas, as well as other militant groups, gangs and even held by families.
The two boys and their mother were not released from Gaza during the temporary truce in late November, despite the fact that the deal agreed between Israel and Hamas required all women and children to be set free.
Hamas has claimed repeatedly that Israeli bombing has killed a number of the hostages held in Gaza and that its continuing campaign is threatening those still alive.
Israel said Hamas was carrying out “psychological torment” on the hostage families, and IDF chief spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the two men had not been hit.
The original article contains 683 words, the summary contains 192 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Not defending Israel here, but my understanding was they did want women and children for the initial 40 released. Hamas said they don't have 40 women and children to release, so now Israel is demanding they release militarily capable hostages in order to hit the 40 number.