Debating responsibility for Hamas’s hostage executions: a missing component

There is a particular angle of analysis that I believe to be missing (with disagreement and correction by readers most welcome) from current debates about responsibility for the brutal executions of six young innocent Israeli hostages by Hamas: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino, z”l. 

Much of the anger expressed by around 500,000 protesting Israelis on Sunday night centred in around Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of ceasefire negotiations. In particular, the executions are believed to have happened shortly after an alleged shouting match between Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant at a cabinet meeting last Thursday night, in which Israel’s government voted to reject the latest attempted ceasefire deal. The sticking point was the extent to which the IDF would retain a presence at the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt.

The raw anger, frustration and pain that we have seen following discovery of the bodies is soul crushing. It would take a heart of stone not to understand and empathise with it. I can also understand, without needing to offer a view on Netanyahu’s approach in previous negotiations, why the anger of the families and Israeli society is being directed in large part towards him, and his cabinet. 

However – and this is where the missing aspect of the analysis comes in – many renowned commentators are blaming the deaths of these six hostages directly on the Israeli cabinet’s actions last Thursday night. Respectfully, I don’t believe it can be said to be any more than an accident of timing, its sheer proximity to the executions making it convenient for mostly well-intentioned people who need to vent their very justifiable anger somewhere. Rather, I suggest that on the current information (which remains sketchy and liable to change), the deal on the Israeli cabinet table that night would not necessarily have saved these six hostages. 

The IDF’s initial assessment is that the hostages were executed at gunpoint as soon as their captors heard soldiers were arriving to come and save them. That military operation apparently arose out of live, highly time-sensitive intelligence given by the recently rescued Bedouin-Israeli hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi. Soldiers reportedly had a 5-10 minute window to go in and save them, and – this according to a US intelligence source – ended up so close that IDF sensors had apparently picked up the gunshots.

Why is the failure to agree the terms of a ceasefire last Thursday night irrelevant? It’s because that IDF operation would likely have gone ahead anyway. Even if the Israeli cabinet had voted to approve the deal, those who lay blame at the cabinet are making several speculative assumptions that: 1) the result of that vote and the announcement of an agreed ceasefire would be declared immediately; 2) the terms of that agreement would have been formally and finally agreed to by Hamas, who notably no longer have clear channels between their leaders Yahya Sinwar and Khaled Meshaal, their fighters and the hostage-takers; and 3) the ceasefire would then take place with immediate effect. 

These processes, possibly more, would need to have taken place, all while military hostage rescue operations like this one were being carried out. Even though (as Gallant warned Netanyahu and the cabinet) the hostages’ condition was deteriorating and time was running out, on the current information we know that these six deaths were by way of a cowardly split-second execution, and not by a culmination of natural causes over the past 11 months. 

As the operation was made possible by time-critical intelligence from a rescued hostage, it is not a safe assumption to make that the Israeli government would have declared and implemented an agreement for a ceasefire with immediate effect, and in doing so, squander a live, preciously short window of opportunity to rescue the hostages while they were still alive and their condition was worsening. This is also because we don’t fully know which hostages would have been earmarked for release first under a ceasefire deal, and when they would have been released (it should of course be remembered that Hamas, by their own admission, do not know precisely where all of the hostages are). This military operation could also conceivably have taken place the day before the Israeli cabinet meeting, and it would likely have resulted in the same outcome.

Therefore, based on what we currently know, the situation is far more complicated than those blaming last Thursday’s cabinet meeting would say.

Unfortunately, however, that situation is now far less complicated for the remaining hostages. Hamas stated over the weekend that the executions were carried out pursuant to new instructions given to hostage-keepers, to kill their captives if they believe the IDF are about to rescue them – a lesson learned from recent, more successful IDF rescue missions (such as Alkadi, together with Noa Argamani, Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Andrey Kozlov, and Almog Meir Jan). Any attempt to release them other than through a deal would see them “returned in coffins”. 

It seems that killing hostages in these circumstances is now official Hamas policy. This presents a new dilemma for Netanyahu, who cannot now, after last weekend, argue that the execution of hostages was a shock – and it makes it more likely that continued military efforts will result in the sudden murder of hostages. Whatever your views on a ceasefire and the course of its negotiation, this is a fact which Benjamin Netanyahu cannot now ignore.