to a Hostage Deal and an End to the Gaza War

Joel Beinin, September 1, 2024

On Sunday, Sept. 1 the Israeli army announced it recovered the bodies of six Israeli civilian hostages aged 23 to 40 in Rafah. The hostages were killed at point blank range a day or two before the army reached the tunnel in which they were found. Taking and murdering civilian hostages are serious war crimes according to International Humanitarian Law. 

Five of the six, Ori Danin, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi, were seized at the Nova music festival. Carmel Gat was abducted from nearby Kibbutz Be’eri. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents addressed the Democratic Party’s national convention last month, was a US citizen. Some 100 hostages remain in Gaza. About one-third of them are presumed dead.

Many sectors of Israeli society erupted in protest upon hearing the news, excoriating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for obstructing a hostage deal that might have brought the six dead hostages home alive. Hundreds of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv and other cities demanding a hostage deal. Demonstrators blocked the main highway in Tel Aviv. Mounted police and water cannons dispersed them.

The Histadrut labor federation called a general strike for Monday. The municipalities of Tel-Aviv and Givatayim and the Gezer Regional Council are supporting the strike. Several Tel-Aviv restaurants and movie theaters announced they will close early and encouraged their patrons to attend the demonstration planned for Monday evening. A major Tel-Aviv law firm declared it will provide legal aid to any arrested protesters. The Hostages’ Families Forum released a statement supporting the strike and demonstration: “For 11 months, the government of Israel led by Netanyahu failed to do what is expected of a government — to bring its sons and daughters home.”

In an article headlined, “Israeli Hostages Die So Netanyahu Can Keep His Coalition Alive,” Haaretz military and defense analyst Amos Harel wrote that he suspects that the Israeli army’s recent search operations in Rafah prompted Hamas to execute the six hostages. “The abandonment of the Israelis held in captivity in favor of political considerations and military pressure cement Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legacy as an autocrat in the making, who clearly feels no sense of duty towards his citizens,” wrote Harel.

Civilian peacenik Gershon Baskin secured the release of Sgt. Gilad Shalit who was held hostage by Hamas from 2006 to 2011 in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian political prisoners. He reported on his Facebook page that in May a quasi-official Israeli government “network” authorized him to contact Hamas and attempt to negotiate a back-channel hostage/prisoner exchange. Netanyahu did not support this and ordered him to cut off the effort two weeks later.

About two weeks ago, the Hostages’ Families Forum asked Baskin to resume negotiations with Hamas on their behalf. He claims to have secured an agreement for the release of all the Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of a specific number of named Palestinian prisoners, the end of the war, and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The Hamas leadership agreed to the plan. Netanyahu rejected it.

The breaking news about the discovery of the bodies of the six Israeli hostages has displaced media headlines speculatiing about whether or not the Middle East is on the precipice of a regional war. There is a direct link between the two topics. The surest way to avert a regional war and return the Israeli hostages is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza approximating what Gershon Baskin negotiated. 

President Biden and Vice-President Harris say they favor an end to the Gaza war. But the United States continues to provide Israel with the weaponry, intelligence, and diplomatic cover (wearing thin to be sure) that enable Israel to continue its assault on Gaza. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the Arab states have all said they want a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. 

Israeli opposition political leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, and other senior security figures have all said that Netanyahu has obstructed a hostage/prisoner exchange by insisting on new conditions (like a permanent Israeli presence in the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors) for months. Why?

Netanyahu wants to continue fighting in Gaza, regardless of the risks of escalation and proliferation that it entails and the consequences for the remaining living Israeli hostages because an end to the fighting could result in: the breakup of the current Israeli coalition government; a countdown to early elections; a resumption of Netanyahu’s trial on three corruption charges; even larger anti-government protests; and a commission of inquiry into the security failures related to October 7, 2023 which would surely attribute some measure of responsibility to Netanyahu personally. 

Netanyahu and the Likud have recovered from the nadir in their public approval during the first months of 2024. But recent opinion polls suggest that even if the Likud remained the largest party in the Knesset, all the current government parties together would not win a Knesset majority if an election were held today. In these circumstances, Netanyahu’s personal interests are best served by resorting to his favorite tactics of delay and equivocation. 

No one who is not privy to the security deliberations of the relevant parties has reliable information about the likelihood of a regional war. So, the extensive speculating feels like a roller coaster ride. Scary, sensational, but with little enduring substance. How was this roller coaster constructed? 

On April 1, Israel deployed US manufactured F-35 jets to assassinate seven senior officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and nine others, including a woman and her child, in a building attached to the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Iran retaliated in a relatively restrained form by directing a barrage of some 330 low tech missiles and drones at Israel. Iran telegraphed the attack well in advance. Therefore, Israel, the United States, and their allies had sufficient time to prepare to shoot down nearly everything.

Israel did not give the Biden administration advance warning of its attack on a site considered sovereign Iranian territory. Nonetheless, the United States mobilized its military and diplomatic resources to keep the Middle East pot from boiling over. Rather than breathe a sigh of relief over avoiding the worst, Netanyahu understood that no matter how provocative Israel’s actions, the Biden administration would support it in any clash with Iran.

This emboldened Netanyahu to have another go at provoking Iran by assassinating a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30 and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Teheran on July 31. An exchange of rockets and missiles across Lebanon-Israel border on August 25 heightened apprehensions that the moment of all-out war had arrived. But once again, this engagement was limited. 

Hezbollah and Iran clearly signaled that they do not want a major war with Israel. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced in a speech after the August 25 clashes, that, “people can take a breath and relax.” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told students in Teheran that a response, “does not always mean taking up arms; rather, it means thinking correctly, speaking properly, understanding things accurately and striking the target with precision.” 

In contrast, Israel has three times attacked Iran and its allies in ways that could easily have led to a regional war in which the United States would be compelled to come to Israel’s defense. This is consistent with Netanyahu’s repeated exhortations to the United States to attack Iran for over a decade. US presidents have wisely declined to oblige. 

Meanwhile, Israeli is continuing its genocidal assault on Gaza disproportionately targeting civilians: more than 800 killed and over 2,400 wounded in the Middle Area of Gaza in early June; at least 90 killed and 300 wounded in the al-Mawasi “safe zone” in southern Gaza on July 14; 100 killed at the al-Tabin School in Gaza City on August 10. In late August Israel renewed targeting humanitarian aid workers, attacking a World Food Program truck near Wadi Gaza on August 27 and an American Near East Refugee Aid convoy headed to a hospital in Rafah on August 29. 

Israel is demolishing Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip before the eyes of the world. The Biden administration is delivering active support. But the Democratic Party could not risk Palestinian American Democratic Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman might mention this on the main stage of its national convention last month. This horror show may not end soon.