Hamas has taken more than 150 Israelis, foreigners and dual nationals, hostage, according to the Israeli government.
It’s a horrible dilemma facing Deborah, a resident of the city of Ashkelon. “This is a very difficult question. Our heart bleeds for them… They want to kidnap us, they want our soldiers to come home, but, opposite, there is Hamas. And that must be eradicated.”she decides, before confiding that she hopes that the hostages will survive this ground offensive on Gaza.
>> “This is not a conventional hostage-taking”: the question of hostages at the heart of the Israeli response against Hamas
The Israeli army is indeed preparing to launch a large-scale ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, ordering the evacuation within 24 hours towards the south of “all civilians” from Gaza City, on the seventh day of its war against Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that the Israeli Prime Minister promised to “crush“But these shows of force by the IDF are worrying: they risk costing the lives of the 150 Israeli and foreign hostages held by Hamas. Thirteen Israeli and foreign hostages held in the north of the Gaza Strip were killed in strikes Israeli air strikes over the past 24 hours, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement said on Friday.
“We already had 1,500 dead, so there will be a hundred more…”
For Yossi, from the city of Ashdod, the Israeli army must destroy Hamas, whatever the price. “I think we’re going to attack and save them. But if we don’t manage to save them, we already had 1,500 dead, so there will be a hundred more… What are we going to do? When you wage war, it’s war: now we have hostages, we have this or that… We must attack! Hamas is over, that’s all we want.”he fumes.
But this point of view is not shared by everyone in Israel, like Merry, who considers that everything must be done to spare the lives of the hostages. “I want the hostages to come home. The solution is to exchange them with all the prisoners we have in our prisons. And once our hostages are freed, we will liquidate Hamas.”says the lady of a certain age.
But this possibility of an exchange of prisoners divides the Israelis: many consider that this would offer a victory to Hamas and therefore call for launching into battle, whatever the cost.