Autopsies on the bodies of the six hostages show bullet wounds
Recently Israeli forces located the bodies of six male hostages in a hiding place within a Gazan tunnel, and the bodies were brought back to Israel where they will receive burials. But first, there have been autopsies to indicate cause of death.
Hamas usually blames such deaths on Israeli attacks, although even if that were true the responsibility would rest with Hamas, which precipitated the current conflict and kidnapped the hostages in the first place. But here are the forensic findings so far:
IDF representatives showed the families of Alex Dancyg, Yagev Buchshtav, Chaim Peri, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, and Avraham Munder the findings from the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.
According to the institute’s report, the bodies of the six hostages all have signs of gunfire, likely indicating they were killed by their captors.
Channel 12 reported that the military believes that they were executed by their captors during an IDF operation near where they were being held, with their guards possibly believing a rescue operation was underway. …
The bodies were located in a 10-meter-deep tunnel shaft hidden behind a false wall.
Many (not all) hostage families blame the Israeli government for not making a deal earlier, because these men were known to have been alive at least for a while after being abducted. I have nothing but sympathy for the hostage families, and so am loathe to criticize them because their suffering is so intense that of course they would do almost anything to have gotten their loved ones back alive. However, the idea that Israel could have done something to get these men back alive – other than a complete surrender to Hamas and its further empowerment – is wishful thinking. That the wishful thinking is understandable doesn’t make it any more logical.
However, I think some of it is a reflection of a more well-deserved rage at the government’s failure earlier to prevent the attack in the first place.
When this war is over (and it will be eventually) the Israeli government starting with Netanyahu and including everyone in the intelligence and defense establishments have a lot of answering to do. Netanyahu has been around way too loo long and needs to go, yes he was reliant on his intelligence agency which was an utter failure but as Harry Truman said “The buck stops here” and while Chief of Staff Lt. General Herzi Halevi has done a great job managing the Gaza offensive he has to answer for the breakdown of command on the morning of October 7 where the IDF was hours late on the scene and where the citizens of the communities were heroically fighting off terrorists themselves as best they could. I read that when the head of miliary intelligence Major General Aharon Haliva was told on October 6 that something was going on in Gaza he replied (he was on vacation in Eilat) that it “was probably a drill and we will look into it tomorrow”. Aliza resigned and needs to be prosecuted and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar needs to be terminated, after the war is over.
Neo, I understand what you are saying about the Families of Hostages. Last night at the DNC, a Hostage Family spoke. Yes they wanted them back, and want the fighting to stop. The audience ate it up, while their Hamas/Palis supporters were outside (the perimeter) yelling and screaming. The attendees support the H/P idjits too. Self debasement is not good.
Israel exchanged over 1000 Arab prisoners (people who were tried and found guilty of various crimes) in return for Gilad Shalit. Some of what those prisoners had done to be imprisoned included DOZENS of people who had been sentenced to MULTIPLE life sentences for terrorist attacks in which many, many,, many people were murdered, and many more injured or maimed.
Sinwar,o ne of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, was among those released as part of the exchange
How many prisoners did they expect to get for 250 hostages? The “cost” seems like it would be unimaginable…
I cannot imagine what any of the hostages or their families are going through. I cannot begin to imagine what Gilad Shalit went through, being held captive for five long years.
But I also cannot imagine how it feels to know that the families of the murder victims of those prisoners released are heartbroken because the murderer of their loved ones are free because of me. That must be a hell of a weight to carry.
And now… that one of those released masterminded the murder of some 1200 people, and the kidnaping of 250 more…
I have no idea how I would feel, or what I would want if someone I loved had been kidnapped. I know I would want them home safe and healthy. But beyond that… There is more to what can or should be done than to simply “bring them home.”
I know this is impossible, but the people of Israel should adopt the idea that every hostage is dead. The IDF then can conduct their operations without hindrance. Of course they will look for the kidnapped and every person found will be a miracle.
I recall hearing very early reports that, on Oct. 7, helicopter gunships were refused permission to launch for some hours. Wonder if that’s ever been tracked down.
Hamas waited long enough and Israel and its forces had relaxed into peacetime habits. DefCon Max costs time, energy and money. Easy to rationalize just “a little” reduction. And another.
@JFM:the people of Israel should adopt the idea that every hostage is dead.
There have been times when the government of Israel refused to negotiate for hostages. I suppose this is not one of those times.
As I understand it, observant Jews are not required to ransom Jewish prisoners in a manner that incentivizes more Jews to be taken prisoner.
I have this bad feeling that maybe 30 to 40 hostages are still alive and those that are so traumatized that must be like zombies. I think Hamas brought back a lot of dead bodies from Israel to confuse Israelis and traumatize them even more by thinking that there is more life hostages than they really were. I’m actually thinking about hoping that Israel retaliates and starts executing some prisoners of their own.
I stated very shortly after Oct 7 I hoped the Israeli government would perform autopsy on every body recovered.
Many a hostage would be killed rather than returned alive sadly.
I’m actually thinking about hoping that Israel retaliates and starts executing some prisoners of their own.
They should have executed all those Palestinians instead of sending them back.. I think it is no death penalty in Israel, maybe religious.
Niketas Chocolates: Than you for mentioning that. I thought there was something to that effect, but until I read your comment I want successful in finding it. It was the word “ransom” I was missing. Here’s what I find, and it seems to echo what you said.
I think the Gilad Shalit exchange incentivized this scale of this kidnapping. I understand why the exchange was agreed to: no one wanted another Ron Arad.
https://schechter.edu/pidyon-shvuyim-the-redemption-of-captives-how-far-should-israel-go-in-order-to-redeem-captives-from-terrorist-organizations/#:~:text=One%20does%20not%20ransom%20captives,standard%20codes%20of%20Jewish%20law.
Sadly so
Why the bibi hate he has to hold off the traitorous intel offices the blue and white scalliwags the regime in dc in uk every newspaper except possibly ina
The taking of civilian hostages is enormously evil. And it puts the government of the hostages in an awful position: if they refuse to do what the hostage-takers demand, the government will be accused of being heartless. If they give in, they incentivize future hostage taking.
A long time ago, when I was a relatively junior Foreign Service Officer and Kissinger was Secretary of State, he informed all of us that our government would not make concessions to hostage-takers to gain our release. Some of us thought it was a heartless statement; some of us recognized that it made sense in the grander scheme of things.
Many years later I was a senior FSO in our embassy in Lima when domestic Peruvian terrorists captured a number of foreign diplomats in the Japanese embassy. A lot of us were in the embassy all night, and in constant communication with the Department of State, considering what we would be saying officially when the press began asking us for comment the next day.
But unlike many places in the world, Americans were not a target for Peruvian terrorists, and Americans who were stuck in the Japanese embassy ended up being released the next day so we didn’t need to say much. I did make several official statements to CNN and a few other news outlets, but they were bland: “the USG will not make concessions to terrorists.”
The Israeli situation is different in a big way: a lot of Israelis, and several hostages, were dual US/Israel citizens. There are Peruvians in the same situation, but they don’t serve in the Peruvian army and are not as numerous as US/Israeli dual citizens. That aside, there are not a lot of similarities. And most of us in the embassy had worked under Kissinger and remembered what he had told us.
It’s a very tough call, but it makes a lot of sense.
Meanwhile,
UN Exhibition on Terror Victims Completely Omits Jewish Victims, Israelis
But of course!
I am not surprised as Hamas are truly savages.
Unfortunate that the first comment here is BrooklyBoy’s error-riddled post.
Correcting the worst errors:
1. The larger story arc is the Israeli Left’s use of the judiciary, media, and academia to force Oslo through, and to hamstring repeated attempts by the Israeli populace to vote us out of it.
The current government was elected on the promise of judiciary reform, and reflects increasing understanding that the Left’s abuses of power have undermined Israeli democracy.
The only people who think Bibi must go, or blame him for this war, are the Lefties that got us into this, and various liberal/progressive types who have been trained like seals to bark when they hear his name.
Everyone else understands that things would be ten times worse if the elite “experts” were in charge. That Bibi and others have been laboring mightily to stall or undo the worst of Oslo despite the Supreme Court’s attempt to conduct foreign policy from the bench.
Everyone else also understands that this war broke out just as the hard Left dropped its mask and attempted a coup against a government elected to clip their wings and reform the system.
2. A subtext of this larger story is the continued perception by the Left that the religious-Zionists are a threat to their power, and their attempts to destroy this group by arming our enemies. (talk about self-fulfilling prophecies…)
More directly relevant to Gaza are the awful decision to unilaterally withdraw from Israeli settlements in Gaza – which conveniently crushed and impoverished tens of thousands of these religious Zionists.
This is also expressed in the continued glass ceiling in the military for mainstream soldiers not in the Leftist clique including the religious-Zionists who now dominate most fighting units.
But the religious Zionists and Likudniks called things correctly.
3. There has yet to be a real reckoning for the Left-wing army brass, who have largely refused to step down. There is mounting tension between the actual fighters and mid-level officers – who see clearly the need to completely eliminate Hamas – and the upper echelon still beholden to the Oslo conception, still talking the absurd “morning after” talk of the international diplomatic corps.
So the idea that the war is being well managed is, unfortunately, false.
Ben-David
You never addressed the fact that there were major screw ups on October 7. Golda Meir eventually resigned after the Yom Kippur war and Netanyahu needs to do the same and go! He has been there far too long and he nor anyone else is irreplaceable. This has been the greatest disaster since the Holocaust and should never have happened. He needs to be a man and accept that the fact that he was the boss.
Brooklyn Boy @ 3:32 PM on 8/22:
I am not knowledgeable on he inner workings of Israeli politics and who should, or not, be held accountable for their intelligence failure that led to Oct 7.
But what happened on Oct 7 in Israel is analogous to 9/11 here in the USA. If I recall correctly, NOBODY lost their jobs or were explicitly held accountable; no heads rolled within the American bureaucracy.
When you have a bureaucratic quagmire, responsibilities are so diffused amongst several agencies with overlapping mandates that any supposedly responsible individual(s) can claim – and they do – that , it was a failure of the “other guy,” and “hey, don’t look at me.” And when you consider how agencies will circle their wagons to protect their own, no matter how culpable someone may be, those really responsible are protected by a wall of obfuscation and deceit.
The intelligence failures in Israel that led to the Oct 7 disaster are not unique. Any successful “surprise” attack can be considered an intelligence failure.
BenDavid: Thanks for your input. I have a number of Facebook friends in Israel, and belong to a couple of Facebook groups with a sizable Israeli membership. In general, the sense I have gotten from most of them, echoes what you write.
But I have two Facebook friends, (and these are people I have known a VERY long time, though I have not seen in over twenty-five years) who virulently hate Bibi and the religious Zionists. One (who made aliyah when he was 18, and is now in his late 60’s), constantly refers to them as “fascists” ( I would so like to send him back to 1930’s Italy) and the other, (who made aliyah after he retired and is now in his early seventies), just bemoans how terrible the current government is handling EVERYTHING. (FWIW, both live in Tel Aviv.) They drive me NUTS.
My other Israeli facebook friends are pretty much as you describe most Israelis. On Facebook, they pray for the hostages, they share normal everyday things, like their pets, or their kids, they share the attacks that happen. They certainly do not fulminate on how evil Bibi and the right are. (FWIW, about half are people who grew up in Israel and served in the army, the other half are people who made aliyah as adults, and did not serve.)
F
Which brings forth an interesting aspect of the comments here: many add their personal stories to the topic. Ann Patchett wrote a book about the kidnapping at the Japanese Embassy in Lima: Bel Canto. I highly recommend the book. I read it decades ago. Maybe I’ll reread it. 🙂
For BrooklynBoy because The Great Orange Whale has been very supportive of Israel and of Bibi, Bibi is tainted and must go. Hate and TDS must be serviced.
The experts have wanted bibi to give up more land seriously are you ignorant on all topics back in 21 the administration forced another hudna back in 14 kerry did the same
According to one source they had planned for pessach but blinken and unrwa had not come up with all the monies yet
Please ignore the temper tantrum on the left that encouraged mutiny among the security services
18Forty channel aims to ask 18 questions of 40 Israeli writers and thinkers. Here’s Gadi Taub’s session with them (1:04:53) subtitled “. . . on Judicial Reform, the Palestinian Authority, and Gaza’s future”.
A good deal of BenDavid’s sketch above is paralleled there in greater detail.:
https://youtu.be/O5gHdAvPxLk?si=zJmtMpKgsfzgNkZX
Bibi and Trump have at least two things in common:
1) They are fallible and imperfect (like the other humans) and not beyond criticism.
2) There are such visibly concerted efforts to take each of them down that it makes me suspicious of any criticism even when it seems reasonable. Not to mention the fact that it is often the same people behind both. I’m looking at you Barry O.
Hate to be particularly grim. Is there any info on how long the hostages had been dead? Were they shot just as the IDF approached, or were they killed weeks ago?
Richard Aubrey:
I haven’t seen any information regarding that.