I am a little confused as to why Israel does not have the hostages yet. My understanding was that Israel has essentially taken control of Gaza and decimated the Hamas leadership. Who are they even “negotiating” with to secure their release? Why can’t the IDF just kidnap and waterboard that person to get the location of the remaining prisoners? Does the person with the authority to make a deal also not know? Are there clandestine cells of Hamas personnel hiding in a basement somewhere waiting for some “signal” from a third party to give up the Israelis?
I have my own theories about the intentions which I do not feel comfortable discussing, so I’ll focus on the practicalities and case studies which show why this complex and difficult to execute: some hostages have been killed by the IDF during rescue operations, this isn’t uncommon, the lone hostage was killed during a French raid in Somalia, consider the Lindt Cafe Siege in Sydney where a pregnant hostage was killed by ricocheting police bullet fire when they finally stormed in, three other hostages and a policeman were injured. This was a lone gunman, I can imagine that the Hamas hostage takers are well organized groups. A hostage during the Gladbeck Crises in Germany were also injured by police fire.
Kidnapping someone who “knows” the location of some hostages I would guess is highly ineffective for many reasons, Torture is a notoriously inaccurate source of information: hence the propensity for false admissions or telling interrogators what they want to hear. That and I suspect that there is a intentional system of moving around hostages from place to place, and never explicitly sharing locations with others to minimize the risk of locations leaking.
If someone who knows the exact location of a hostage has not been heard from for 24 hours, it is probably a good idea to move to a new location anyway.
Finally there is the incredible danger to the IDF soldiers themselves going into a dynamic environment where they don’t know how much resistance they will encounter, being expected to minimize the harm to hostages while almost certainly coming under fire. It’s probable suicide.
I am a little confused as to why Israel does not have the hostages yet. My understanding was that Israel has essentially taken control of Gaza and decimated the Hamas leadership. Who are they even “negotiating” with to secure their release? Why can’t the IDF just kidnap and waterboard that person to get the location of the remaining prisoners? Does the person with the authority to make a deal also not know? Are there clandestine cells of Hamas personnel hiding in a basement somewhere waiting for some “signal” from a third party to give up the Israelis?
I have my own theories about the intentions which I do not feel comfortable discussing, so I’ll focus on the practicalities and case studies which show why this complex and difficult to execute:
some hostages have been killed by the IDF during rescue operations, this isn’t uncommon, the lone hostage was killed during a French raid in Somalia, consider the Lindt Cafe Siege in Sydney where a pregnant hostage was killed by ricocheting police bullet fire when they finally stormed in, three other hostages and a policeman were injured. This was a lone gunman, I can imagine that the Hamas hostage takers are well organized groups. A hostage during the Gladbeck Crises in Germany were also injured by police fire.
Kidnapping someone who “knows” the location of some hostages I would guess is highly ineffective for many reasons, Torture is a notoriously inaccurate source of information: hence the propensity for false admissions or telling interrogators what they want to hear. That and I suspect that there is a intentional system of moving around hostages from place to place, and never explicitly sharing locations with others to minimize the risk of locations leaking.
If someone who knows the exact location of a hostage has not been heard from for 24 hours, it is probably a good idea to move to a new location anyway.
Finally there is the incredible danger to the IDF soldiers themselves going into a dynamic environment where they don’t know how much resistance they will encounter, being expected to minimize the harm to hostages while almost certainly coming under fire. It’s probable suicide.