The Fable of the Israel-Hamas Disarmament 'Breakthrough'

"[The deal] took months of very difficult negotiations."

"What happens next maters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real."

"Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning."

Nikolay Mladenov, Board of Peace high representative for Gaza

 

"[The movement -- Gaza -- was making] concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip."

"Israel will not intervene in the issue of disarmament. The National Committee [National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG)] is the body that will undertake this task." 

Ghazi Hamad, member Hamas negotiating team 

 

"The only good news in recent days is the announcement by the U.S. president of an agreement for Hamas to relinquish their weapons and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres 

Palestinian Hamas terrorists keep guard on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages, identified at the time by Palestinian militant groups as Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip February 20, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

 

Western news media have published the story that Gaza's terrorist-governing Hamas -- an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood whose radical Islamist program of enduring jihad by polished 'public relations' that appeal to the Western press, and liberal-minded Western governments have given them entre to Democratic-liberal countries failing to recognition the stealth infiltration-by-diplomacy and the threat it ultimately poses to their foundational cultures and values and systems of justice, also by extension give credence to Palestinian terrorism as a 'liberating' force from 'occupation' -- is prepared to surrender its arms. 

 

Hamas is the other face of the Muslim Brotherhood, the one dedicated to a different type of jihad, through violent force necessitated by the intent to produce mass murder.

 

That mass murder took place once again on a scale significant enough to persuade Israel that this time around there would be no negotiations with the terrorist entity for a break in hostilities. Each of those breaks between mass assaults on Jews in Israel had Israel breathe a sigh of relief in the belief that the fury of hate would be healed by the passage of time, while Hamas took those breaks as a traditional Islamist 'hudna', an opportunity to recruit, retrain, rearm, and return to the attack. 

 

That would be repeated time and again, between assaults-and-defence. The reality that the Hamas reason for existence is the elimination of Israel is one that human decency, where it exists, fails to fully grasp.

 

The Conversation

 

The Hamas charter is a pledge to eliminate Israel from its ancestral geographical heritage, as Judeans indigenous to only part of the land that the renewed state of Israel sits upon. In a fit of generosity, the UN General Assembly reached a consensus in 1947 to offer its Partition Plan, giving Jews the opportunity to establish their state on a tiny portion of its original territory -- and Palestinian Arabs a like opportunity on another portion of Judean heritage land, while Jordan occupied a major portion. While Israel reestablished its ancient presence in 1948, the Palestinians refused the offer. 

 

They have refused to recognize Israel's right of existence ever since. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have never resulted in that recognition, nor in the Palestinians accepting concessions from Israel for an agreement that would satisfy the aspirations of both in enabling the establishment of a Palestinian state next door to Israel's. Palestinians have been taught over the decades closing in on 80 years that the entire region belongs to them and that Israel's reestablishment is that of a colonial enterprise. That Israel must be destroyed, leaving Palestinians to claim 'their' geographical entitlement 'from the river to the sea'.

 

When Ghazi Hamad, negotiating for Hamas, speaks of "concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip", it is meant to appeal to the gullibility of a Western audience, the very liberal-left Westerners who ascribe an empathetic motivation for Palestinian violence against Jews, as a victimized people -- a designation cultivated by Palestinians to gather empathy for their 'cause' -- fighting back against their oppressors. The oppressors being in reality Jews who fight back to ensure their existential security against neighbours dedicated to their extermination.  

 

Two Palestinian youth react to the news of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas from Khan Younis. Ramadan Abed/Reuters

 

Hamas doesn't care one whit for the well-being and safety of Palestinians in Gaza, proven time and again their use as living shields, the outcome of which is Palestinian civilians dying, directly caused by Hamas deadly provocations against Israel; the greater the number of dead, the more emphatic those numbers become in seeking the sympathy of the international community, attributing those deaths solely to Israeli intentionality, not Hamas contrivance.

 

Hamas has no intention of surrendering its weapons, precious to them as the instruments enabling them to carry out their charter obligations in destroying Israel. Hamas demands the complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops before it will agree to finalize the surrender of its weapons. Without those weapons there would be no Hamas, completely emasculated of actionable intent. In that portion of Gaza where Hamas maintains its monopoly of complete control, it has reestablished itself as the sole authority, having overcome the resistance of Hamas tribal groups that had attempted to dislodge it from its primacy.

 

An Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza at this juncture would ultimately reward Hamas for its October 7 mass slaughter of Israeli civilians, with the assistance of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and ordinary Palestinian civilians for their ravaging of southern Israel kibbutsim, the mass rapes of Israeli girls and women at the Noma Music Festival for Peace, and the hostage-taking of Jewish children, the elderly and infirm, entire families, women and men of the Israeli military and foreign farm workers.  

 

The October 7 War    International Affairs

 

  

Expediting Visas for Palestinian Students From Gaza to Canada

On Thursday, 7 August, 35-year-old Mohammed Khatib learned that his refugee status in Belgium was being revoked — allegedly over his verbal support for Palestinian armed resistance and alleged links with international terrorism. Khatib is the Europe coordinator of the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Samidoun. A Palestinian himself, he co-founded the organisation in 2011 after fleeing to Belgium from Lebanon in 2010, where he had grown up in the Ain El Hilweh refugee camp.

The decision to revoke his refugee status follows a campaign labelling him a “hate preacher,” initiated by the Belgian far-right on social media and taken up by former State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole De Moor, who announced a procedure against him in October 2024.

The case, overseen by the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRA), is based on information collected by the Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (CUTA), which classifies Khatib a “serious” security threat.

Ciara Carolan, The New Arab 

 

In Belgium, showing solidarity with the Palestinian cause has become a serious legal and personal risk for refugees living under strict migration policies  The New Arab

 

"Canadians have witnessed an explosive rise in extremist rhetoric, ideological radicalization, and politically motivated violence, along with an unprecedented rise of antisemitism."

"As concerns about public safety have grown ... so too have questions about how governments balance humanitarian objectives with security considerations."

"The purpose of this research is not to tell Canadians what they should think. It is to help illuminate what Canadians do think, and to contribute a more informed discussion about the complex issues affecting Canadian society. Understanding public attitudes toward security, extremism and social cohesion is an important part of understanding the environment in which antisemitism and other forms of [hate] emerge and evolve."

HR Canada Charitable Organization  

Samidoun has been outlawed in Canada -- presumably, since it has been placed on Canada's terror list along with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and so many other terror groups. It has been outlawed elsewhere as well, notably Germany. But it is in Vancouver, Canada, that Samidoun chose to make its home where it engages in anti-Israel propaganda and promotes antisemitism generally, and despite its listing still uses its Vancouver headquarters with seeming impunity.

 

Canada's Liberal-led governments appear to have a soft spot for Palestinian 'rights' and have latterly emerged as a stern critic of Israel; its previous warm relations with the Jewish state seem to have evaporated in the last decade, even more so since the barbaric slaughter that took place in southern Israel when thousands of Palestinian terrorists and civilians led by Hamas spilled over from Gaza to commit mass murder, torture and rape of Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023.

 

Palestinians have been given favoured status through immigration, refugee intake and illegal migration. Nor has there been a shortage of arrivals in Canada of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps where their family members live in quiet security, their presence alarming to the nth degree to the far more numerous Iranian-Canadians who loathe the Iranian regime and fear their representatives in Canada whose presence seems not to bother the government of prime minister Mark Carney one whit.

 

Adil Charkaoui watches over a pro-Palestinian march in Montreal in late 2023. (Adil Charkaoui/X)

 

Interestingly, it seems at long last that ordinary Canadians have had enough of Palestinian 'student groups' creating chaotic scenes of anti-Israel propaganda and threats against Canadian Jews. Foreign coordinated marches, demonstrations and other forms of public displays of civil disobedience and lawlessness where keffiyeh-clad and masked pro-Hamas followers demonstrate their choice of 'human rights defence' by calling for an international Intifada, for a 'Final Solution', and chanting 'From the river to the sea'. Nor have mass public prayers shutting down roadways and intersections proven enchanting to the greater Canadian public. 

"Exporting the revolution, giving birth to and exporting terrorist groups is part of the Iranian regime. The names [of the groups] are not important. Terror is the most important mission inside and outside Iran, outside is even more important.These regimes have to reflect their image, superiority and power, in order to expand. Iranians actually co-operate with Russia and China. They learned it from them."

"Western countries are kind of honest and naive, and in obeying the law and liberal and democratic values, they sometimes fall in that trap of not knowing they help these dictatorships. They use your systems of being honest and good and trying to help the poor, and they abuse it."

Iranian-born, Israeli terrorism expert Beni Sabti  

A recent poll has resulted in just under fifty percent of Canadians revealed to be opposed to the Liberal federal government's decision to expedite student visa processing for Palestinians from Gaza. Immigration Minister Lena Diab last month announced her decision to expedite visa processing for 37 students from Gaza, along with their families. Commissioned by the HR Canada Charitable Organization, the Leger poll asked respondents whether they believed the policy would help students whose education had been disrupted by war, or whether they felt "speeding up the process could make it more difficult to adequately identify potential security risks, including individuals with extremist affiliations". 

 

The decision to expedite visa processing was opposed by forty-three percent of respondents, while 38 percent supported it, and the remaining 19 percent answered "I don't know". Results that demonstrate notable public concern and uncertainty for the planned acceleration of visa processing for Gaza Palestinian students related to perceived security risks in permitting radicalized Palestinians into Canada. Indubitably because Canadians have seen more than enough of such radicalized Palestinians already in Canada and making their presence all too well known. 

 

Muslims pray outside McGill University during an anti-Israel protest in Montreal on October 7, 2024 — the one year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. Photo by John Mahoney/Postmedia/

  

"Our mandate is to advance education on issues relating to antisemitism and discrimination, with a particular focus on how public perceptions and media narratives shape those conversations."

"Understanding how Canadians view, and are talking about, issues that intersect with security, extremism, and humanitarian policy helps provide important context for that work."

"[Canadians have been exposed to a growing number of incidents involving Islamic extremism in recent years], and this poll suggests those concerns are reflected in public opinion."

"The results indicate that appropriate security screening for those arriving from countries where these ideologies are prevalent is an issue of significant concern for millions of Canadians."

Amanda Eskenasi, education director, HR Charitable Organization 

 

Free, Free Gaza From Hamas

"[Applicants' stories of misfortune in Gaza while] heartbreaking [left me unable to issue the orders they sought to force the processing of their visa applications]."

"While this was possible in December 2023 when the Policy was issued, the Rafah crossing was closed on May7, 2024, and remains closed to this day."

"Therefore, the Applicant -- through no fault of his own or of IRCC [Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada] -- has not obtained or sent his biometrics."

"I am satisfied the Applicant has a legitimate expectation to his application being dealt with in a timely manner. However, this expectation only arises when the Applicant meets all the conditions of the Policy and provides biometric information [which he is unable to do]."

"The root cause of the Applicant's failure to provide his biometric data is of course the changed operational context, namely the closure of the Rafah crossing which made obtaining and submitting biometrics impossible."

"[All cases denied]." 

Justice Henry S. Brown, Federal Court of Canada 

 

"Canada's behaviour throughout its rollout of its own policy has been utterly cruel."

"Canada has no serious intention of providing safe refuge to Palestinians. This is why we sought justice from the court."

"The Federal Court has given the government a pass to do nothing while Palestinian visa applicants in the Gaza Strip face death and starvation."

Hana Marku, lawyer representing visa applicants

Palestinian terrorists move towards the border fence with Israel from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7.    Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

 

Ottawa had announced a "temporary public policy to facilitate temporary residency visas for certain extended family affected by the crisis in Gaza", which had taken effect on January 9, 2024. It was similar to the move taken by the Canadian government in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to enable Ukrainian fleeing for safety to enter Canada temporarily, and to Afghans whose flight from the Taliban return to power, and the aftermath of an earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, leading to people fleeing for temporary safety abroad. 

 

Neither Ukrainians, nor Afghans have been anything but grateful to Canada for that respite from terror. Palestinians, on the other hand, have brought terror with them to Canada. While seeking temporary respite from conditions of war brought upon them by the very government they voted into office, a government comprised of fascist Islamists whose ultimate purpose was not responsible governance on behalf of the welfare of those they represented, but to succeed in destroying the Jewish state next to which the Gaza Strip stood.

 

Palestinians look for survivors in the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Thursday. (Hassan Eslaiah/The Associated Press)

 

In wars, full-scale hostilities, it is inevitable that civilian populations bear some of the brunt of the battles taking place in the conflict that surrounds them. Israelis, long accustomed to never-ending conflict courtesy of their neighbours, have developed primary safety processes with a 'safe room' available throughout the country, either in homes or in buildings to which civilians in danger can turn. In Gaza, the only safe areas for returned fire are in countless tunnels underground which civilians are not permitted to enter, serving as havens for terrorist operatives, offering the lives of civilians in their stead. 

 

To Hamas, as well as other Palestinian and non-Palestinian Islamist terrorist groups, 'collateral damage' in the guise of dead and wounded civilians are a boon to their victimhood public relations apparatus; the larger the numbers, particularly of children and women, the more impact it has on the Western audiences who are encouraged to overlook the fact that Israel never initiates conflict, but reacts to the conflict forced upon it. And Palestinians and their Islamist cohorts in Canada make the most of that advantage in comparative collateral numbers.

 

A large group of protesters could be seen, around 1 p.m. Tuesday, near the corner of Mackay Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard. (Aatefeh Padidar/CBC)

 

Jewish Canadians bear the consequences in Palestinian-led pro-Hamas campaigns that march through the streets of Canadian cities to elicit sympathy for the 'victims' of the 'occupation'. An occupation so-named resulting from a state being forced to monitor and prevent as many violent incursions and attempts to murder Israeli citizens as possible from an indefatigable enemy intent on its destruction. While it is Israelis who are the victims of never-ending Palestinian assaults, the Palestinians' victimhood ploy is popular in liberal, left-wing, DEI-worshipping Critical Race Theory-invested social environments throughout the West.

 

Canadian Immigration law seeks ostensibly to protect Canadians from the entry of those hostile to Western democratic justice, values and heritage. Travel visas sought by Palestinians in Gaza have on occasion failed to meet the demands of the applicants, which has led the applicants to make an effort to force officials to satisfy them, regardless of the fact that the situation has the background of a region torn asunder in war. The very same civilians in Gaza who overwhelmingly support terrorism and hatred for Jews are anxious to escape the atrocious conditions and the fallout of war brought to them by their leaders.

 

Protesters stand in front of the TIFF entrance sign during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Sept. 6, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan

 

At present out of a Gaza policy of 5,000 visas, 4,200 applications are still  unprocessed where the government exempted applicants from proving financial stability, requiring they leave Canada when their authorized stay elapsed. A handful of applicants, dissatisfied with the dismal pace of their visa applications, decided to take the government to court regarding the three-stage process that begins with a relative in Canada completing forms, submitting documentary proof of identification and once deemed eligible the names of applicants are forwarded to Israeli and Egyptian governments to permit access to the Rafah border crossing.

 

There biometric information is gathered at a collection facility, including fingerprinting and photographs. It is this final stage where the holdup occurs, since the Rafah crossing was closed by Israel, in an active combat zone. The cases involved were denied simply because the applicants failed to meet the threshold for a court order forcing the government of Canada to act since that required all elements of a process to be completed prior to unreasonable delay's determination.

 

A loss for the applicants, but a small victory for Canadian Jews whose compassion has its limits.  

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Sept. 7, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey

 

 

The Dedicated Savagery of Palestinian Terrorism

"Since the round of fighting in May two years ago there is a decision by Hamas leadership to display unprecedented restraint and forbearance."

"For over two  years there hasn't been a single rocket fired under Hamas initiative from Gaza."

"Hamas is very, very restrained and understands the consequences of further defiance."

Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi 

 

"Dad, I am speaking to you from a Jew's phone."

"I killed her and her husband  -- killed them with my own hands."

"I am in Meflasim father. I killed 10. Ten! Ten with my own bare hands."

"Their blood is on my hands."

"Mother, your son is a hero."

October7/23 Hamas terrorist 

 

"Today, yes, today, our people resume their revolution, rectify their path and return to the plan of liberation and the establishment of the state through blood and martyrdom."

"...Today is the day of the great revolution that will end the last occupation and the last racist apartheid regime in the world."

"To the brothers in the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, the day has come when your resistance joins the people of Palestine."

Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif

 

"Our objective is clear: we want to liberate our land, our  holy sites, our al-Aqsa, our prisoners. This is the goal that is worthy of this battle, worthy of this heroism, worthy of this courage."

"We have only one thing to say to you [Israel]: Get out of our sight. Get out of our Jerusalem and our al-Aqsa."

"We don't want to see  you on this land. This land is ours; Jerusalem is ours, everything is ours."

"You are intruders on this pure and blessed land. There is no place for you."

Ismail Haniyeh, head, Hamas political office 

Palestinian terrorists move towards the border fence with Israel from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7.  Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

   

It is beyond difficult for normal, ordinary people to grasp just how it is possible that a human mind could be so gripped with a mind-consuming hatred as to make it even remotely possible that in a chaotic frenzy of deadly loathing overtaking all other emotions, that of human fraternity, compassion, empathy, rational thought and most of all that very intimate reaction to committing lethal physical harm on others, would restrain anyone, anyone at all other than those who have experienced the mass psychosis of self-assumed victimhood driving a collective thrust for vengeance against an imagined enemy. 

 

Yet continued, ongoing exposure in a tribal setting where leaders deliberately set out to convince their civilian public from infancy to youth of the grandeur of honour to be gained in the ferocious determination to slaughter those identified as their enemy will do it. Characterizing Jews -- settled as a nation in their ancestral Judean homeland, an ancient geographic reality that preceded the arrival of Arabs in the region by millennia -- as 'invaders' out to conquer the world, starting with the Arabs in the Middle East, insulting to Islam as rank imposters worshiping a false god.

 

The passion of hatred against the shared vision of a Jewish state plotting to extinguish the aspirations of Arab Palestinians on land they claim as their own, has seen a complete and utter inversion of cause and effect; Palestinians dedicated to the  eradication of Israel and the slaughter of Jews, invoking their version of reality; Israeli Jews becoming the invaders and mass murderers victimizing Palestinians, when the violent assaults against Jews by Palestinian Arabs, beginning with the Palestine Liberation Organization and morphing into the PFLP, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and a myriad of others like Hezbollah dedicated and fully psychopathic are the actual transgressors.

Which led to four thousand terrorists, and an estimated two thousand Palestinian civilians entering Israel from Gaza, to launch a mass terror attack, a surprise incursion that had been planned and rehearsed for up to two years, until the final decision was made. Maps had been hand-drawn of farming communities showing where the security bases in each were located; maps conveniently produced by Palestinians who had been given employment as agricultural workers in those same kibbutzim whose members fully empathized with Palestinians in Gaza. The kibbutzim received the brunt of the destruction and pillaging.

But there was also a nearby music festival with thousands of Israeli youth from all over Israel in attendance. The Nova Music Festival was to have been a place of music, dancing, good fellowship and celebration. It turned into a venue of horror with mass rape, dismemberment and torture; barbarity on a grand scale. Hundreds of young people died, fleeing in panic from the bloodlust-maddened terrorists whose goal was death and destruction. The Israeli military posts, accustomed to constant barrages of rockets from Gaza, and unprepared for what was to follow, ended the day with IDF soldiers either killed or taken hostage.

 

A final count of 1,200 deaths from that fateful day which included mostly civilians, mostly Israeli Jews, but Israeli Arabs and foreign farm workers as well who suffered the same savage fate as the slaughtered Jewish children,  youth, women and men. 250 infants, children, elderly, women and men, along with IDF personnel were taken into Gaza to serve as hostages. Where they were subjected to torture, starvation, isolation and injuries that were never treated, most being kept in the network of underground tunnels that served Hamas as weapons depots, command centers, communications areas and refuge from detection for Hamas operatives.

Israel was unprepared for the carnage of October 7, 2023. Its leaders and intelligence groups had convinced themselves that the-then ceasefire arrangement with Hamas would hold. There had been no real skirmishes, to alert Israeli authorities beforehand. Even though some of the Israeli female IDF lookouts had reported suspicious activities nearby, when in fact these were rehearsals for the stealth invasion that was to follow on October 7. Their warnings were ignored; Israel's government wanted to believe that Hamas had finally relented, even though its charter was clear: the destruction of Israel. 

 

Naama Levy bodycam video taken by Hamas

That Saturday morning, the time of a national heritage holiday of Simchat Torah, a time of great rejoicing, Israelis in southern Israel heard a rocket bombardment heading from Gaza to Israel, but this in and of itself was not unusual. What was unusual was that at the border between Israel and Gaza, bulldozers were ramming the security fence separating the two, and waiting trucks, motorcyclists and those on foot swarmed through the fence on their way to disperse toward their target Israeli communities, to begin shooting people waiting at bus stops. They invaded homes to kill the inhabitants, breaking down safe rooms, and torching other homes with entire families burned to death.

 

This kind of dedicated savagery of sadistic proportions is the result of hatred so intense that a young man who had just killed ten Jews was eager to impart the good news of his heroism to his approving, congratulatory parents. The kind of sadistic savagery that saw Palestinian terrorists run down horrified, frightened girls and woman for mass rape and mutilation. Men so proud of their accomplishments that they took care to video their atrocities to air them as proof positive of their courage and heroic status.  

"We made them think that Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians [in Gaza] and has abandoned the resistance altogether."

"All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack."

Lebanon-based senior Hamas official Ali Baraka, October 8 

 

"Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country, because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation and must be finished."

"We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again."

"The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight."

Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad  

Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova festival on 7 October and killed hundreds   BBC, Nik Millard

 

May Their Memories Be A Blessing

"Following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine the fourth body handed over to Israel y Hamas does not match any of the hostages."

"Hamas is required to make all necessary efforts to return the deceased hostages."

Israel Defense Forces 

 

"The government and the entire establishment for the return of captives and missing of the State of Israel are determined, committed and working tirelessly to return all of our deceased hostages for proper burial in their country."

"The Hamas terrorist organization is required to uphold its commitments to the mediators and return the fallen as part of the agreement's implementation."

"We will not compromise on this and we will spare no effort until we return all of the hostages, until the last one."

May their memories be a blessing."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

 

"All 20 hostages are back and feeling as good as can be expected."

"A big burden has been lifted, but the job is not done."

"The dead have not been returned, as promised! Phase two begins right now!"

U.S. President Donald Trump 

Residents of Rehovot await the return home of released hostage Nimrod Cohen, holding a banner that reads: ‘Nimrod, it’s so good that you’ve come home’ (Vardit Alon-Korpel/Israeli Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)

 

As far as Israel is concerned, a major objective in its conflict with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas was finally securing the release of Israeli  hostages, kidnapped on October 7, 2023 from kibbutzim, farming communities and the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel, when terror operatives stormed across the border from Gaza on a well-planned mission of slaughter. In the process the terrorists from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Fatah, four thousand in number, joined by two thousand Palestinian civilians launched an orgy of looting, raping, and murder.

 

The sheer level of unadulterated horror perpetrated on Israeli civilians, mostly Jews, but including Arabs and foreign farm workers and agronomy students from abroad, demonstrated the depths of satanic depravity in sadistic savagery that saw girls and women being tortured and mutilated before and after mass rape and finally murdered, much of it revealed through forensic examination, but also captured on video by body cams worn by the marauders, later released on social media sites as proud performances of 'resistance' against Israeli 'occupation'. That occupation the very ancestral land that Israel sits on, claimed by Palestinians as their own.

 

Finally, after two years of incarceration in dank, dark, airless tunnels, where physical and mental torture was their lot along with starvation rations and inadequate potable water, the last remaining twenty live hostages were released from their captivity under an agreement led by the U.S., supported by Arab nations with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey applying pressure on Hamas to comply -- the very countries that have traditionally supported, funded and armed Hamas, along with Iran. 

 

The bodies of Israeli hostages who were taken, dead into Gaza, and others who died or were murdered while hostage in Gaza, some 28 in number, according to the agreement were to have been returned in the first phase of the agreement. That did not quite happen as expected. An initial three dead hostages were repatriated, then another three -- and with them a body dressed in an Israeli military uniform, but found to be a Palestinian. 

 

Shiri Bibas was kidnapped with her two children during the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 PA Media

 

This is not the only time that sadistic cruelty meant to cause Israeli grief was staged by Hamas; a body claimed to be that of murdered hostage Shiri Bibas, mother of two infants, Ariel and Kfir, ages 4 and 2, all strangled to death by soulless bare hands, was turned over to Israel by Hamas. That body was that of a Palestinian woman from Gaza. It was only later that the remains of all three were eventually returned to Israel. The purpose of that demonic deception was to cause additional anguish, and it did.

 

"All the families of the hostages have been updated, and our hearts are with them in this difficult hour. The efforts to return our hostages is ongoing and will not cease until the last hostage is returned", read a message from the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, Tuesday night. Late Tuesday Israeli authorities confirmed that bodies received the previous day were those of Guy Illuz, Yossi Sharabi, IDF Capt. Daniel Peretz and Nepalese agricultural student Bipin Joshi. 

 

Paying tribute to the seven dead captives returned to Israel since Monday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke of the Hamas "obligation to fulfill its commitment and return all the hostages". "We as a nation bear a moral obligation to bring back all of our fallen who remain in Gaza. Every one of them, until the last", stated Mr. Herzog. All 48 hostages, both living and dead were mandated to be returned by the U.S.-mediated agreement, within 72 hours of the ceasefire that began on Friday, with the IDF withdrawal from parts of Gaza. 

 

Israel announced it was prepared to sanction Hamas over delays in the return of deceased hostages; reacting by postponing opening of the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, thus reducing aid supplies into the Strip. Israeli officials a day later cancelled the measures on the return of additional bodies. And then, after a final return on Wednesday of another four bodies, Hamas announced it was unable to locate any more of the deceased Israeli bodies for return as promised to Israel. This, even though Israeli intelligence knows where those bodies are.

 

Hostages Inbar Haiman (left) and Sgt. Maj. Muhammad el-Atrash, whose bodies were returned by Hamas late October 15, 2025. (Courtesy)

 

Despite signing on to the agreement, Hamas remains unwilling to surrender the hostages to the very last one, viewing them as indispensable to their game of control, knowing how deeply engrained in Israeli culture the return of all  hostages held by Palestinian terrorists is. Their return is a sacred obligation, a precious albeit onerous task that results in the wildly uneven trade of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, among them mass murderers, in exchange for one Israeli body. 

 

Palestinians welcome prisoners released from Israeli jails under a prisoner exchange agreement, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Oct. 13. Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg/Getty Images

 

"Enough with the disgrace."

"Moments after opening the gates to hundreds of trucks, Hamas quickly reverted to its well-known tactics -- lying, deceiving, and abusing families and bodies."

"Nazi terrorism understands only force, and the only way to solve problems with it is to wipe it off the face of the earth."

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir 

 

Bringing Them All Home

"It's urgent and every day that goes on is just more and more suffering and more and more possible death and psychological devastation."

"[He and others with whom he was initially held - including women and children - had been forced to adjust to life in the tunnels]. We were gasping for our breath."

"[There was constant abuse]: "I witnessed a young woman who was being tortured by the terrorist. I mean literal torture, not just in the figurative sense."

US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel  

"I'm here because of Trump. I'm here only because of him. I think he's the only one who can stop this war again. He has to convince Netanyahu, he has to convince Hamas, I think he can do it."

"They [his two children, Ariel and Kfir,] were murdered in cold blood, bare hands."

"They [his Hamas captors] used to tell me: 'Ah, it doesn't matter, you'll get a new wife, you'll get new kids, better wife, better kids'."

"You don't know when it's going to happen and when it happens, you're afraid for your life. The whole earth would move like an earthquake, but underground."

Former hostage Yarden Bibas

The 24 hostages presumed to be alive who are still held by Hamas: Top row, from left: Elkana Bohbot, Matan Angrest, Edan Alexander, Avinatan Or, Yosef-Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel. Second row, from left: Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Bipin Joshi, Rom Braslavski, Ziv Berman, Gali Berman. Third row, from left: Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Segev Kalfon, Nimrod Cohen, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn. Bottom row, from left: Matan Zangauker, Bar Kupershtein, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Tamir Nimrodi, Pinta Nattapong. (Hostages Families Forum)

"Out of 59, you had 24 that were living, and now I understand that it's not even that number."

"Edan Alexander's parents are here today. He is the last known living American hostage."

"We don't know how he's doing, really. We think we know, and hopefully positive." 

U.S. President Donald Trump

 

"To date, we have returned 196 of our hostages, 147 alive."

"There are [currently] 24 alive. Up to 24 living, 59 in total. We want to bring back the living and the deceased as well. It's a very important goal."

"In the war, there is the ultimate goal, and that ultimate goal is the victory over our enemies, and that we will achieve." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israelis attend a rally calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv on March 1, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

President Trump stated during a National Day of Prayer event held at the White House on Thursday that he had just recently become aware that fewer than 24 Israeli hostages remain alive in captivity in Gaza, held by Hamas. Parents of U.S.-Israeli Eden Alexander still captive by Hamas had attended the event. The president was referring to the figure released by Israeli authorities and widely shared in recent months. 

These are men of all ages who had been taken hostage on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on a barbaric rampage of murder, killing over 1,200 men, women and children.

Of the over 200 children, women and men taken hostage on that fateful day, a relative handful remain alive, living in the most inhumane conditions imaginable. Tortured, shackled, starving, in fading health and psychological distress, reaching a state of disequilibrium they may never, if and when released, recover from. 

Their 'home' for the past year and a half has been deep in airless, dank tunnels dug deep throughout Gaza. If their minds are still in working order, they pass the endless hours of torment, dreaming of returning home.

Relatives and supporters of those held hostage in the Gaza Strip during a rally calling on the government for a deal that would bring all the remaining captives back, outside the prime minister residence in Jerusalem on March 2, 2025. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

They are not forgotten. Their families, their friends and colleagues, all of Israel yearns for their return. Those who have died while in captivity will be forever remembered. They represent a national sacrifice too dear to fade into memory. Their names and the pain they endured will remain as a reminder to Israelis and Jews everywhere of the impossible sacrifice imposed on a civilian population whose state and whose military can never be disengaged from protecting their citizens from unceasing hatred and violence from neighbours whose dearest wish is to see them all dead.

Classified information relayed to Israeli cabinet ministers as reported by the Kan News public broadcaster in Israel casts into doubt the number of those still living. Loathe to surrender hope entirely, during the annual International Bible Contest in Jerusalem on Independence Day Thursday, Israel's prime minister reiterated his government's intention to have all its citizens, whether alive or dead, returned to their homes.

The ultimate goals for the war now continuing in the Gaza Strip is eradication of Hamas as a military threat and political adversarial body, and to ensure that all of the hostages return home. The Palestinian enclave must, above all, be prevented from re-emerging as a future and ongoing threat to the State of Israel and her people whose right to existence, to live in peace with their neighbours is a basic human right not denied any other nation, any other people whatever their origins.

People protest against the Israeli government and call for the immediate release of the Gaza hostages, Tel Aviv, March 22, 2025. (Gili Yaari /Flash90)

Gazans Waking to Hamas Terrorism Backlash

"Our children have been killed. Our houses have been destroyed."

"[I joined the protest in Beit Lahiya] against the war, against Hamas, and the [Palestinian political] factions, against Israel and against the world's silence."

Abed Radwan

 

"[The protest began as an antiwar protest and swelled to over 2,000 with people chanting against Hamas]."

"It's the only party we can affect."

"Protests won't stop the [Israeli] occupation, but it can affect Hamas."

Ammar Hassan

 

"Our main goal is to bring the hostages home."

"If Hamas continues to refuse a deal, it will pay an increasingly heavy price".

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz 

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Beit Lahia, with many chanting anti-Hamas slogans  AFP

 

Out of a population estimated to be a million and a half people, thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza marched in another day of antiwar protests. Their demonstrations represent a rare display of public rage against their governing body, Hamas, that very political group whose charter calls for the elimination of the State of Israel, and of whom the vast preponderance of Gazans approved. An approval of both the terrorist group's violence against Jews, and their goal of destroying Israel. 

 

Presumably, the expectation among the population was that Hamas would go about their business of killing Jews and destroying the state expeditiously. Their shared aspiration unimaginably not drawing the civilian population of Gaza into the fray. A delusional fantasy given that in previous encounters between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces, Hamas deliberately placed its civilian population in harm's way for the distinct public relations purpose of portraying Israel as a heartless killer of Palestinians.

 

During the horrendous savagery of the October 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel, Palestinian civilians saw fit to join the thousands of Hamas operatives in their sadistic rape-and-murder spree. When Israeli hostages were  taken into Gaza, the civilian Palestinian population gave ample displays of Jew-hate as they celebrated the capture of an array of Jewish citizens from children to the elderly, wounded and dead, catatonic raped women, by ululating their pleasure and actively taunting and beating hostages and dead bodies.

Tuesday's protest was the largest anti-Hamas demonstration since war began following the 7 October attacks   AFP

So have Palestinians in Gaza discovered their mislaid humanity? Coming out in modest droves to rally against Hamas? The protests organized through social media platforms saw Hamas security forces responding to disperse the gatherings with forceful interventions to little avail. Had Palestinians responded by denying that Hamas terrorism reflected their values before the Israel Defense Forces invaded Gaza with the intention of destroying Hamas and rescuing the hostages, it might have seemed credible that they were intent on divorcing themselves from the violent terrorism they now are disowning.

 

It has taken 17 months of conflict between Israel and Hamas to impress upon Palestinians that violence begets violence and they could just as easily be on the receiving end as casualties as were the Jews, minus the ghoulish savagery of perpetrators intoxicated with hatred. In the town of Beit Lahiya some 3,000 people demonstrated, many chanting "the people want the fall of Hamas". What took so long?

 

Israeli hostages released by Hamas in Rafah and Nuseirat as part of ceasefire deal – video

Dozens of men in a Gaza City neighbourhood chanted "Out, out, out! Hamas get out!" In Jabaliya a similar protest took place. Speaking on condition of anonymity in fear of retribution, a protester explained the demonstration occurred because "everyone failed us". They chanted against Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and Arab mediators. Despite no Hamas security at the protest, scuffles broke out between supporters and opponents of the protesting group.

 

Hamas is adamant, it will release the remaining captives only in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and a complete and unconditional Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. It could have had all that with the exception of the Palestinian prisoners' release up until October 6, 2023. Had they only put down their arms, declared their intention to destroy Israel null and void  and begun instead to govern the Gaza Strip responsibly.

 

People hold hands at a memorial event marking the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack in southern Israel, in Tel Aviv, Oct. 7, 2024. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

 

Cruel and Malicious Agreement Violation

"We will work with determination to bring Shiri home together with all our hostages -- both living and dead -- and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and malicious violation of the agreement."

"The sacred memory of Oded Lifshitz and Ariel and Kfir Bibas will be forever enshrined in the heart of the nation."

"May God avenge their blood. And so we will avenge."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

"[We have] no interest in retaining any bodies."

"[We have] demonstrated full compliance with the agreement [in recent days and remain] committed to all its terms."

"We reject Netanyahu's threats."

Hamas statement 

Yarden, Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas 

 

The body of Oded Lifshitz, 83 when he was abducted on October 7, 2023, was returned to Israel in a casket. This was a man who lived in a kibbutz on the border of Southern Israel with Gaza. He was an exponent of peace between the two neighbours. And he arranged to pick up and deliver Gazans, including Palestinian children to  hospitals in Israel for medical treatment. He and those others like him who lived in the border kibbutzes believed in peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

 

Palestinian farm workers found regular employment in the Israeli kibbutzes, enabling them to earn a wage far superior than anything they could find in employment-bare Gaza. These Palestinian farm workers became familiar with the Israelis among whom they worked. Comfortable enough that they all ate their meals communally in the kibbutz's dining halls. And it was from among these trusted Palestinian farm workers that Hamas operatives planning the October 7 invasion of the kibbutzim were given hand-drawn maps of the kibbutzes, including which of the structures held members of each kibbutz's security team.

 

Some of the Palestinian civilians accompanying the  terrorist groups during the invasion were familiar to the terrorized Israelis who were being raped, dismembered and slaughtered. Oded Lifshitz was one of them. Of the four caskets that were delivered in a handover from Hamas to the Red Cross, then to waiting Israeli IDF members, two were tiny affairs, holding the bodies of a four-year-old child and a 10-month-old infant, sibling brothers, Kfir and Ariel Bibas.

 

 

Their mother Shiri Bibas was purportedly in one of the two large adult-sized caskets. All were taken to the forensics unit for verification of identity. It was quickly evident that it was not Shiri Bibas in the casket meant to hold her, but the body of an unknown woman from Gaza. Devastating news for her waiting family members, already wholly traumatized by their experiences of the past fifteen months, and particularly so for her husband Yarden, father of their two babies.

 

Hamas responded to the revelation and the fury of Israel by demurring over malicious intention; no, never would they be so inhumanely sadistic, and they would "conduct a thorough review" of the information with respect to the body. Moreover, they demanded the immediate return of the body in Shiri's casket, that of a Palestinian woman. What occurred, they said was an error in remains resulting from Israeli bombing of the area where the Israeli hostages had been held. The following day another casket was  delivered, this time confirmed that it held the body of Shiri Bibas.

 

IDF officers salute a casket containing the body of slain hostage Shiri Silberman Bibas, late on February 21, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

Hamas had informed Israeli authorities a year ago that the Bibas family, mother and two infants were killed in an Israeli bombing raid into Gaza. They set up a video featuring Yarden Bibas, held separately from  his family, taunting him with the information that his wife and children were dead. No one in Israel believed they were dead, and Yarden, released from captivity two weeks earlier, held steadfast to the idea that they were alive and would be released to him. 

"We identified Shiri Bibas two days after we identified her children. Our examination found no evidence of injuries caused by bombing."

"[The medical staff at Abu Kabir had worked] professionally and carefully to provide clear answers to the Lifshitz and Bibas-Silberman families [since receiving the bodies, first on Thursday and then on Friday night]."

"It’s a difficult day for the families, for us, the medical staff, and for the entire nation of Israel."

Dr. Chen Kugel, director of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) 

On Friday, Israeli Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari cleared  up the Hamas contention that the Bibas babies had been killed along with their mother in an Israeli air strike. Dr. Kugel, the pathologist had already stated that mother Shiri had not died of wounds consistent with an air strike. Then came the statement from Rear Admiral Hagari: "The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys — they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities." 

Shiri Bibas is led into Gaza by her Palestinian abductors, carrying Kfir and Ariel in her arms