Israel announces the death of four hostages
Three are elderly men and one middle-aged. The announcement is somewhat mysterious:
The Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday that it had confirmed the deaths of four Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity, following the gathering of new intelligence findings.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press briefing that the military could not immediately confirm the circumstances of the deaths of Chaim Peri, 79, Amiram Cooper, 84, Yoram Metzger, 80, and Nadav Popplewell, 51, but that it would investigate their deaths fully.
“We estimate that the four were killed together, in the Khan Younis area, several months ago, while being held by Hamas terrorists and while IDF forces were operating in Khan Younis,” he said.
“I know that difficult questions will arise regarding the circumstances of the deaths,” Hagari added, appearing to reference the possibility that the four had been mistakenly killed by IDF troops or Israeli airstrikes.
It is unclear whether the IDF discovered the bodies and whether part of the investigation will involve forensics on the bodies, or whether the intelligence has been gathered from captured Hamas operatives or from other informants. Three of the men were in a video released in December and the other in May. Hamas claimed the three were killed in an Israeli strike. That could actually be true, and if so it would be squarely on the shoulders of Hamas. Or it could be a false claim by Hamas. There is no way to get the truth from them; that’s why Israel is trying to figure it out. I wish them luck with that.
Hamas’ kidnapping of the hostages on October 7 set this all up, and it was obvious (or should have been) from the start why they did it and what their plan would be regarding them. The precedent set long ago by Israel was to release an enormous number of terrorists for one hostage, thus guaranteeing the taking of more hostages. Hamas scored a great coup on October 7 by taking so many, and in particular the children, the elderly, and the women.
This was guaranteed to create the maximum pressure on Israel to do anything, anything, to get them back. The hostages were Hamas’ insurance policy against being obliterated by Israel – that, and “international opinion” and “international law,” which would inevitably side with Gaza.
Once a person is under the control of kidnappers, all bets are off. The person can be tortured, raped, and/or killed at the kidnappers’ will. The kidnapper can hold out for a very high ranson price. In the case of Hamas, we don’t even have proof of life for the hostages, since even the very few who have been in videos are not holding recent newspapers, for example. Hamas is drunk with its own sadistic power, and knows the extreme value of its captives. It is willing to squeeze the last drop of agony out of the situation for the families, the Israeli government, and Israel’s sympathizers.
And many in Israel are cooperating by blaming the Israeli government for not doing enough – that is, for not utterly capitulating, or not waving a magic wand that causes the hostages to come home.
I can’t locate it at the moment, but I recall Caroline Glick saying in a video that there are actually more families of hostages who are saying to Israel’s government to not make any deal that would compromise the war effort than who are demonstrating to the government to free them at any cost. But that latter group is making the most noise and getting the most media coverage. And how can we blame that group, when their loved ones continue to be in such terrible peril? I can’t blame the families, even though I think that were the government to actually do what they say it would be disastrous. But they are suffering to an almost unimaginable degree, and their desire to have their loved ones rescued overrides everything.
How many hostages do I think are still alive? I think probably at least thirty, mainly young women who have been kept as sex slaves. Perhaps some men are alive, too, but nowhere near as many. However – and I think this is an important thing to remember – I don’t know that we’ll ever see many or even any of them again alive (or even dead), no matter what kind of “deal” may eventually be made. Since we don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead of the ninety or so hostages about whom Israel still has little to no information,, Hamas can do whatever it wants with them or with their living or dead bodies. Hamas has total power in terms of the hostages – including the withholding of information, the better to torment Israel and the families ever more exquisitely.
And the evil Biden Administration supports Hamas.
It’s a sign of Western weakness to focus in on hostages. It really is “collateral damage” and people need to toughen up.
”I can’t locate it at the moment, but I recall Caroline Glick saying in a video that there are actually more families of hostages who are saying to Israel’s government to not make any deal that would compromise the war effort than who are demonstrating to the government to free them at any cost.”
It’s in the one posted here yesterday, right below today’s open thread.
Gah
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syia4gana
From Jack Wayne’s comment: “… people need to toughen up.”
Yes. As General Curtis LeMay said in the wake of WWII (quoted in Richard Rhodes’s great book The Making of the Atomic Bomb), “I’ll tell you what war is. You have to kill people. When you’ve killed enough, they stop fighting.”
Accordingly, I think it should be Israeli policy to execute, with little delay, every Hamas member they capture. This would include those scooped up in mass surrenders, since those vermin are otherwise grist for further rounds of disastrously lopsided prisoner exchanges.
Doing this would flout the Geneva Convention and any other limp-wristed international mush, but since Hamas isn’t party to those (and, even if it were, doesn’t behave like it): SO WHAT?
Toughening up is desperately needed across Western civilization.
An adjacent query, if I may?
How many hostages taken on October 7th have been released alive to date?
That number, those few — barring any who have subsequently passed away — may be counted in the answer we seek: for, unhappily . . . they may never escape their misfortune.
sdferr:
I think about 120 were released. From many interviews I’ve watched, I’d say most are doing quite well at this point. Of course they’ve been changed by their experience. But they seem to be a very resilient bunch.
Israeli Jews have a different history than most American Jews. Most Israeli Jews are either the descendents of Holocaust survivors or of Jews who’ve lived in Midfle Eastern or North African countries or Iran for millenia and been subject tp persecution, and have been under the threat of attack by their present neighbors. A tougher group than American Jews, for the most part.
And some may be in Egypt.
https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-804159
Israel needs Sherman.
His letter to Atlanta after ordering the civil populace to leave the city.
From the site Iron Brigader
As expected, both civilian and Confederate military authorities protested the expulsion order but Sherman was unmoved. Atlanta Mayor James M. Calhoun sent a letter to Sherman on September 11th, asking that he “reconsider this order, or modify it, and suffer this unfortunate people to remain at home, and enjoy what little means they have”. Sherman replied the next day. In his letter to the mayor, he refused to change the order, and explained his reasoning. He also placed blame for the war and its accompanying hardships squarely on the Confederacy. The letter gives some insights into Sherman’s concepts of total war, concepts that would soon be put into motion on his March to the Sea in November and December.
Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Atlanta, Georgia, September 12, 1864.
James M. Calhoun, Mayor, E.E. Rawson and S.C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta
Gentlemen: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such thing at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power, for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the south into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.
You might as well appeal against the thunder storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.
We don’t want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.
You have heretofor read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that by the original compact of Government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, customhouses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that the war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.
But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.
Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta. Yours in haste,
W.T. Sherman, Major General commanding
Chases Eagles;
Thing is, Sherman didn’t have the “international community” breathing down his neck, nor did he have the US president threatening to cut off some of his armaments.
Mike Plaiss:
Yes.
@Paul Nachman:Doing this would flout the Geneva Convention
The Geneva Conventions only protect those who themselves abide by the laws of war and only in wars between sovereign states. Not only that, not every country agrees to every part of the Geneva Conventions.
Neo, very true and I have come to the painful conclusion that international community is by and large evil as hell.
How many hostages do I think are still alive?
==
Zero.
“Gah…”
Indeed…but not to worry. There’s not a whole lot more damage that President Fentanyl-Tranq can do…since most of the damage has already been done…though I suppose it’s true that “Biden” can do a whole lot more, though maybe NOT BEFORE THE ELECTION. Maybe.
Keep in mind that Israel is “attacking hospitals and schools”, “starving Palestinians” en masse, murdering tens of “thousands of women and children”—but killing no “militants”, none at all—and “committing genocide”.
Keeping in mind, too, that the border is secure, that inflation is transitory, that Global Warming is the main crisis of our times, that the economy is in good shape, that men can be women and women men, that the armed forces are ready for anything, that crime in our cities is constantly declining, that half the country are enemies of the Republic, that the 2020 and 2022 elections were fair and transparent, that Covid-19 originated in a bat cave, that the Covid vaccinations were rigorously tested and found safe, that masking up saved lives (especially for youngsters), that there is no evidence that Iran had anything to do with Oct. 7, that Joe Biden is one of the best presidents—if not THE best—in the country’s history, etc. (I must have missed SOMETHING….).
So how much more damage can America’s “Best President” actually do?
(Guess we’ll have to stick around to find out.)
Some families want the government to do Something. When you’re desperate, certain issues of reality go by the board.
Have to sympathize, but not act accordingly.