Obliterate Hamas or Save the Hostages? Israel Can’t Do Both, Experts Warn

Israeli tanks were massing at the border of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday for a possible ground invasion as Israeli bombs fell inside the territory, killing hundreds — all while Hamas holds an estimated 150 Israeli and foreign hostages. 

Israel’s grief and fury at the loss of more than 1,000 lives in a shocking Hamas attack last weekend may only be matched by its imperative to safely recover those captured by the militant Islamist group—including women, children and the elderly. 

Now, with Hamas threatening to kill its captives and broadcast their executions in revenge for the bombings of Palestinian homes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an impossible choice: To destroy Hamas or work to save the hostages?

Experts say Israel probably can’t do both.

“Getting hostages out from terrorist capture through special military operations is extremely difficult in the best of circumstances,” former acting CIA Director John McLaughlin told The Messenger on Tuesday. 

“But doing this in a densely packed urban environment under military attack will require not just exquisite planning but also an extraordinary amount of luck.”

Absent a deal to exchange Palestinian prisoners held by Israel for the hostages in Hamas custody — or some other breakthrough — rescuers would have to locate scores of captives distributed throughout the Gaza strip, a heavily-urbanized territory the size of Rhode Island, and devise near-simultaneous rescues for each location.

Despite efforts by Qatar and the U.S. to secure freedom for the unknown number of women and children held by Hamas, the Islamist militant movement says it’s in no mood to parley.

“The military operation is still continuing… therefore there is currently no chance for negotiation on the issue of prisoners or anything else,” Hamas official Husam Badran, told AFP from Doha.

“Our mission now is to make every effort to prevent the occupation from continuing to commit massacres against our people in Gaza, which directly target civilian homes,” he said. More than 830 Palestinians have been reported killed in Israeli bombing. 

Badran’s statement poses a challenge to the IDF: It suggests Hamas is demanding the Israel either stand down or forget about the captives. 

Hamas said on Monday that four hostages, including a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, had already died in the bombing campaign. 

“The state, the government and the man who heads it all have a duty to do everything in their power to bring all the captives back to Israel alive,” the influential Haaretz paper said in an editorial on Monday.

Israel has a long history paying high prices for the return of captive soldiers and citizens – even for their remains. In 2006, Gaza militants seized Israeli soldier Gilad Shallit; they exchanged that lone prisoner five years later for 1,000 Palestinian inmates from Israeli prisons.

It was unclear what price Israel was prepared to pay for 150 captives.

“I expect they will do their best to rescue the hostages, but in the end it depends on the calculation — whether it is more important to deal a major setback to Hamas by utterly destroying its capabilities (and perhaps Hamas’ popular support) or to keep alive the hostages,” Joost Hilterman, head of Middle East programs at the International Crisis Group, told The Messenger.