Hamas’s hostage murder and ‘long war’ strategy

Hamas’s cold-blooded execution of six Israeli hostages after 331 days in captivity in Gaza’s underground terror tunnels have underscored the urgency of freeing the remaining 101 kidnap victims. The question is, at what price?

Referring to the hostages, thousands of Israeli demonstrators have demanded for months that Israel “Bring them home now!” The language is a demand on Israel and not on the Hamas kidnappers to free the hostages, vindicating the terrorists’ relentless pressure strategy on the Netanyahu government and Israeli society.

In spite of harsh criticism of Israel’s inflexibility in negotiations, the record tells a different story. As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted in a dramatic Hebrew language press conference on 2 September, the last two American bridging proposals noted Israel’s flexibility and Hamas’s refusal to budge. Why? Because Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar doesn’t want a deal. His plan is to cause Israel to bleed profusely, divide Israeli society, create civil strife – even civil war, bring huge pressure on Netanyahu, and trigger a regional Iran-driven war on Israel.

It seems that Hamas is making progress in its psychological war against Israel. Hamas made sure to record each of the hostages on video with the aim of galvanising Israeli and international public opinion to attempt to force Israel to capitulate to Hamas’s demands. When Israel refused, Sinwar ordered the execution of six innocent victims, depicting the Israeli government as intransigent. This win-win situation for Hamas reflects its “total warfare”.

Sinwar’s strategic thinking was confirmed by recently discovered instructions in Arabic issued by Hamas leadership and recovered by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) units in Gaza. Hamas’s strategy directive stated, first, increase distribution of hostage photos and videos to maximise psychological pressure; second, lay blame on Netanyahu for the ongoing war and hostage crises; and third, counter the Israeli narrative that the IDF offensive manoeuvres will bring the return of the hostages.

Why else is a hostage deal stuck in the ruins of Hamas-controlled Gaza? The Israeli hostage fiasco is also subject to media misinformation. Calls for “ceasefire” and “bring them home” don’t reflect the per deal on the table. Israel would pay an enormous price for very few live hostages. The 28 August deal negotiations included the proposed return of between 12 and 20 live hostages. The prospective agreement leaves the vast majority of live hostages in Hamas dungeons, increasing the probability of death for the remaining victims.

Israel is profoundly concerned that there won’t be a “second stage”. This is why the prime minister is holding out for the maximum number of hostages to be returned in the “first stage”, which many believe will be the only one.

While Sinwar’s psychological warfare on Israel is succeeding, Israel has drawn local and international ire for refusing to leave the strategically vital Philadelphi Corridor, the 14km passage that separates Gaza from Egypt. The issue is one of the highest importance in terms of securing Israel and preventing the massive flow of arms and ammunition through scores of tunnels that have been discovered in the past months from Egypt into Gaza.

An Israeli pullout from the Philadelphi Corridor would leave this vital passage in the hands of Hamas, enabling the terror group to maintain power, rearm, and resupply. This would also reassert Iran’s presence in the Gaza Strip and serve as an escape route for Hamas leadership as well as scores of hostages that can be moved into Egyptian Sinai and ultimately to Iran or other countries. Retreating from the corridor and merely depending on technological means to monitor it, as some in the Israeli defence establishment have suggested, would represent a strategic disaster for Israel that it cannot afford to risk.

The claim that Israel can allow itself to pull back from the Philadelphi Corridor in order to complete a prospective deal and then return after several weeks or months is highly unlikely. History shows that it’s far more difficult to retake evacuated areas, even when under fire or strategic threat. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s concession of the Philadelphi Corridor and the subsequent highway of terror created there since Israel’s 2005 withdrawal is a good example. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s unilateral retreat from southern Lebanon and the resulting massive rocket and missile fire from Hezbollah on northern Israel is another example of creating a vacuum of security, which has led to the evacuation of about 80 000 Israelis from their homes. Israel hasn’t re-occupied southern Lebanon to stop the assault. International pressure on Israel has prevented it from retaking territories vital to protecting both northern and southern Israel.

Now, with Hamas’s cold-blooded execution of innocent women and men, the worst thing that Israel could do would be to guarantee its loss of the war by negotiating with the murderers of its civilians. The way forward is complex. Though many in the West may think that this is a political conflict that can be negotiated to a successful solution, Israel is facing a broader ideological, religious, Islamic war on its existence, led by the Iranian regime and executed by its proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, the Houthis, and radical Shiite militias in Iraq. Hamas’s strategy was dictated years ago when Sinwar visited Tehran, consulting with terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani, subsequently assassinated by the United States.

Israel finds itself in a Catch-22 situation to which there are no easy answers. History has taught us painful lessons about confronting and overcoming evil. The US response to 9/11 and the British response to the 7/7 Al-Qaeda attack was to eliminate Al-Qaeda militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq. The West’s response to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Europe wasn’t to negotiate with Hitler, but to destroy the Nazi regime.

Hitler’s Mein Kampf was discovered in homes across the Gaza Strip, a reminder that Israel – and by extension the West – is in a long war opposite an ideologically immutable, apocalyptic enemy that is exploiting 101 hostages to achieve its goal of Israel’s destruction and its promise of regional domination.

• Dr Dan Diker is president of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs.