What the Israeli hostage rescue tells us about the war in Gaza.
Today is a glorious day for those of us who support the Jewish State. In a bold daytime raid, Israeli military and special forces went into the heart of Gaza and rescued four hostages – Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv – under heavy Hamas fire. The operation – probably the most complex and dangerous mission of this sort since the famous Entebbe raid – was a huge success, reuniting these innocent civilians with their families after a long period of captivity in truly horrendous conditions. The scenes of return are moving in the extreme, as are the words that Noa reported hearing after a knock on the door of the home in which she was imprisoned: “It’s the IDF, we’ve come to rescue you.” Even in the early aftermath of this heroic operation, there are many takeaways that deserve attention.
Noa is clearly the face of the hostages rescued, given her youth and attractiveness, as well as her appearance in terrifying videos from October 7 and during her time as a Hamas prisoner. Her return home will get most of the international attention, but the rescue of the male hostages was just as important. Given their ages – the oldest is 40 – none of these men would have been included in any potential ceasefire deal. The military operation to save them from the clutches of evil was the only possible way to get them safely home, and thank God it was carried out successfully.
We must not forget just how long these civilians were prisoners of Hamas. These men and women were held by their terrorist tormentors for eight months. Thirty-five weeks. Two-hundred and forty-five days. Five thousand eight hundred and eighty hours. Three hundred fifty-two thousand and eight hundred minutes. More than twenty-one million seconds. Two-thirds of a calendar year. Longer than the Franco-Prussian War, the Spanish-American War, the Persian Gulf War, and the Battle of Stalingrad. Nearly enough time to fully gestate and birth a baby. Forty times longer than the Six Day War, thirteen times longer than the Yom Kippur War, and seven times longer than the 2006 Lebanon War. For the youngest rescued hostage, 21-year-old Almog Meir Jan, the period in captivity was a full three percent of his life to this point. And these innocent souls would have been held indefinitely if not for the courageous action of the Israeli forces.
That fact, in and of itself, is worth remembering. All of these months of back-and-forth negotiations, operational pauses, and humanitarian aid delivery did not earn the release of a single hostage. Since the initial ceasefire in late 2023, there has been absolutely no progress on peace talks. This is entirely because Hamas and its Iranian backers don’t actually want peace. They want victory – a victory that ends with the total obliteration of Israel and the millions of Jews who live there. There will be no hostage releases without full Israeli capitulation which, despite the best efforts of the Biden administration, is not coming. Instead, we will see more of these daring rescues as the noose is tightened around the neck of Hamas. No outcome other than the total destruction of Hamas will suffice. The proponents of negotiation must realize that the positive end result they seek will not come in boardrooms, but on battlefields. And it seems like Israel is more than willing to play the ball where it lies.
The rescue of these hostages, in the face of intense Hamas resistance, from a civilian neighborhood tells a great deal about the conflict and the intractable problems Israel faces in Gaza. Hamas deliberately endangers civilians by locating their military infrastructure within civilian areas, but it has become clear that many Gazan civilians are on board with this. These four hostages were being held in the homes of ordinary Palestinians, who obviously knew and approved of it. Hamas is supported by the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, in both Gaza and the West Bank. A society that loves murderous antisemitism more than it loves its own children is not fit for statehood. In fact, it is not fit for civilization at all. Until the cancer inherent in Palestinian society is excised, they will continue to suffer at their own hands, even if they disclaim responsibility.
The final takeaway from this spectacular rescue operation is that the people who have been pushing for a ‘ceasefire’ in Western governments, international institutions, and the press have never cared about freeing the hostages and preventing unnecessary death; they care entirely and solely about forcing the state of Israel into losing this war. This is blatantly obvious when you look at the reactions to this excellent news about the return of innocent civilians after 8 months of captivity.
News outlets across the West are centering the narrative pushed by Hamas itself: that the focus of the world should be on the Palestinians who died in this operation – including Hamas fighters – and not the Israelis who were rescued. The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN have all failed the basic moral test here, pushing the claims of Palestinian civilian deaths without context or confirmation, while downplaying the hostage rescue. The Times and Post have pushed out news alerts to this effect, while CNN claimed in a TV chyron that the hostages were “released” and not rescued – wording that gives credit to a terror group that took these innocents from a music festival instead of to the brave men and women of the IDF who fought tooth and nail to get their countrymen back safely. You’d think the media would have gained some understanding that pushing Hamas narratives often backfires, but they have deliberately ignored those lessons. The credulity on this issue is the point.
Bureaucrats across Europe and international institutions have acted much the same way, arguing that Israel committed a random massacre of women and children for essentially no reason. Francesca Albanese, perhaps one of the worst people on the planet when it comes to this issue, claims that this was simply another “perfidious” act by Israel that is part of the ongoing “genocide” against the Palestinian people. Of course, the hardest hit were the online Intifada activists who spend their days playing groupie to mass-murdering terrorists. They, as usual, massively exaggerated the civilian death toll, totally ignored the killing of Hamas operatives, and claimed that the freed hostages were in reality “prisoners of war” who should have been shot on sight once they were in the process of escaping.
When it comes to the question posed by these anti-Israel zealots – is it acceptable to kill civilians, including children, to rescue hostages – the answer is a resounding yes. Civilian casualties are part of war, especially when they are deliberately used as human shields by the enemy – an enemy, I might add, that started this war with a purposeful massacre of Israeli civilians and has refused to surrender and release its illicitly-taken hostages. If you care about Palestinian lives, you should be just as anti-Hamas as Israel is. The only way to safeguard Palestinian civilians is to force Hamas into an unconditional defeat. Now ask yourself why the purportedly pro-Palestinian side isn’t pushing for that outcome. (Hint: it’s because they’re not pro-Palestinian, they’re pro-Hamas.)
All in all, four three-word phrases – two in ancient languages – say everything you need to know about the remainder of this conflict:
Bring them home. Hamas delenda est. Finish the job. Am Yisrael Chai.