With its announcement that militants holding Israeli hostages in Gaza buildings and tunnels had “new instructions” to kill them if Israel Defense Forces troops approached, Hamas signaled the opening of a chilling new chapter in an already brutal war.
Capitalizing on a spasm of public outrage in Israel over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to bring home the remaining hostages, Hamas released a comic-book-style image of a kneeling figure threatened with a gun, followed by a video of Eden Yerushalmi, 24, a bartender at the Nova music festival and one of six hostages who Israel says were shot at point-blank range in Hamas captivity last week before Israeli forces could reach them.
In a cruel twist of timing — funerals for the dead hostages took place on Sunday and Monday — Hamas said it would broadcast footage of what it described as the “final messages” of the remaining five. It released a second video on Tuesday, featuring Ori Danino, a 25-year-old who was kidnapped at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7. Danino helped other festival-goers escape the horror. It was not clear when any of the footage was filmed — or whether the videos were intended to be used that way.
Hamas’s new tactics – which Yerushalmi’s family says amount to “psychological terror” – will further stoke anger in Israeli society. Over the past three days, crowds have gathered in cities across Israel, with protesters blaming Netanyahu for what they say is sacrificing citizens to stay in power, while right-wing members of his coalition have threatened to topple the government if he ends the war.
After a general strike that nearly paralyzed the country on Monday, thousands of protesters returned to the streets on Tuesday, with demonstrations in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Hod HaSharon, Haifa, Herzliya and Ra’anana.
In Tel Aviv, some of the largest crowds gathered in front of Kirya’s Begin Gate — the military headquarters — where a space had been set aside for protesters, including families of hostages, to gather. Images showed fires in the streets, police trying to extinguish the flames and protesters waving flags and demanding the release of hostages held in Gaza. Police later said they had arrested three people suspected of rioting.
However, it remains far from clear whether such public displays of anger will force Netanyahu to change Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza.
Some analysts say that, unlike at the start of the war, Hamas may no longer believe that holding hostages gives it leverage over Israel.
“Hamas has taken the hostage issue out of the equation. It knows that this current Israeli administration is not interested in any kind of hostage release deal,” he told CNN Tahani Mustafa, senior analyst on Palestine at the Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. “I don’t think they don’t already consider them to be substantial playing cards.”
In a statement late Monday, Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida said the new instructions came into effect following an “incident” in Nuseirat, appearing to refer to an Israel Defense Forces operation in June that rescued four Israeli hostages from a refugee camp in central Gaza.
The operation, which killed 274 Palestinians, took place in the mid-morning hours when the streets were filled with people shopping at a nearby market. Some of the captors were killed and the IDF successfully recovered the hostages unharmed, further weakening Hamas’s leverage in negotiations with Israel.
Since then, the IDF has rescued one more hostage – Farhan Al-Qadi, 52, an Israeli Bedouin citizen who was recovered from a Gaza tunnel last week.
When Hamas took about 250 people hostage in southern Israel on Oct. 7, “they thought they could try to use them for a prisoner exchange deal,” Mustafa said. Although a swap deal was reached as early as November, no further agreement has been reached 10 months later.
A ‘watershed’ moment
The successful rescues may have helped Netanyahu argue that Israel’s twin war goals of destroying Hamas and returning the hostages can be pursued simultaneously, making calls for a cease-fire deal for the hostages less urgent.
But after the killing of the six hostages under Hamas’s new directive, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Monday to demand that Mr. Netanyahu’s government reach a deal to free the hostages, in one of the largest demonstrations since the war began. Many wondered whether national outrage would be enough to force him.
Instead, a defiant and bellicose Netanyahu used his first public comments since the discovery of the bodies to double down on his strategy in the Palestinian enclave. He said Israel would retaliate strongly against Hamas for the deaths of the six hostages, suggesting the response would be similar to the July strike on Hezbollah that killed the Iran-backed group’s top commander, Fu’ad Shukr.
Netanyahu again stressed his commitment to fight until Hamas is defeated and repeated his refusal to withdraw soldiers from the Gaza-Egypt border – a new flashpoint that threatens to once again derail negotiations to reach a settlement.
While Netanyahu has refused to give ground under mounting pressure, analysts say Hamas’s killing of the six hostages was a turning point, prompting many in the country to ask whether Israel is reaching the limits of what its military power can achieve, and whether its offensive could be endangering the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza.
“The penny that has dropped for many Israelis is that going after Hamas is not complementary to the return of the hostages. It is making it harder to return the hostages,” he said. to CNN Ori Goldberg, Israeli political analyst and professor at Reichman University in Tel Aviv.
“It’s become very clear that the IDF presence played a direct role in the decision of their Hamas guardians to kill them,” he said. “The feeling that the Netanyahu government is incompetent, that Netanyahu is doing all this for his own reasons, is now much more powerful for many people. So I think it’s a watershed moment.”
Nimrod Novik, a member of the Israel Policy Forum and a former senior adviser to the late Prime Minister Shimon Peres, said many Israelis have felt two waves of grief over the past three days: first, over the deaths of the six hostages, and then, after Netanyahu’s speech, “the realization that Netanyahu is determined to pursue an unlimited occupation of Gaza.”
New red line
The deaths of the six hostages also sparked the latest spat between Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. According to Israeli media reports, the two men argued furiously over whether, as part of any ceasefire agreement, the Israeli military should leave the Philadelphia Corridor — a 14-kilometer stretch of land that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Although Netanyahu has recently begun to strongly insist that Israel maintain a military presence in the corridor for security reasons, Hamas has long made it clear that the proposal is not viable. Gallant reportedly told Netanyahu that insisting on this condition means “there will be no deal and there will be no release of hostages.”
Regardless, the cabinet proceeded to vote on the plans presented by Netanyahu, approving them by eight votes to one, with Gallant being the only dissenter.
Novik, a former adviser to Peres, said the new focus on the Philadelphia Corridor is merely symbolic.
His “discovery” of the corridor and effectively elevating its status to a sacred site “has no security merit,” Novik said.
In fact, the occupation of the corridor – which runs alongside densely populated towns and cities – risks endangering Israeli troops, as Israel’s previous occupation of the territory, which ended in 2005, showed, Novik warned.
“They are easy targets,” he said. “And if Hamas managed to kill our troops in 2004 before they had the kind of munitions and equipment they have today, the results will be even more devastating.”
Since the corridor issue was raised last month, Hamas has said it will not agree to Netanyahu’s red line.
“At this point, they cannot accept anything less than the demands they are now asking for: a complete cessation of hostilities and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops,” Mustafa said. “If they were to accept anything less than what they are demanding, that would be political suicide for the movement.”
Netanyahu’s defiant speech on Monday may have extinguished hopes that the killing of the six hostages could lead to a change of course. Former IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, who has become more critical of the government since leaving his post earlier this year, said of the remaining hostages after Netanyahu’s speech: “He sealed their fate.”
The insistence on keeping troops along the corridor could also mean more tension between Israel and the United States, which throughout months of negotiations has insisted that Israel must fully withdraw from Gaza after the war.
When asked Monday whether Netanyahu was doing enough to reach a deal, President Joe Biden said simply, “No.”
This content was originally published in New brutal Hamas tactic signals shift in battle for Israeli hostages on CNN Brasil.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
