For the first time since August 1, 2014, Hamas is not holding any Israeli hostages - alive or dead. That is a moment of relief, gratitude, and quiet exhalation. But it is also something else: a rare strategic pause. And Israel would do well to take advantage of this pause to draw some hard conclusions.
Hostage-taking has not disappeared from Hamas’s playbook. Quite the opposite. It remains one of its most effective tools - not because of military prowess, but because of what it does to Israeli society.
It torments families. It fractures politics. It paralyzes decision-making. Hamas understands this intimately. And unless Israel changes the rules of the game, it will happen again. History has shown us that.
Since the Oslo Accords, Israel has released more than 10,000 terrorists in prisoner exchanges and “goodwill gestures.” The result has been painfully consistent: more kidnappings, more murders, more deals.
Exchanging massive numbers of security prisoners - many of them heinous terrorists with buckets of blood on their hands - for Israeli captives became Israel’s default response. That was not always the case.
Until 1978, Israel resisted such bargains. Then the dam burst as Israel freed 76 terrorists for one soldier captured during the Litani Operation. In 1983, 4,598 prisoners were freed in exchange for six soldiers. In 1985, more than 1,150 prisoners - including Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin - were exchanged for three IDF soldiers. And in 2011, 1,027 prisoners, including October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, were released in exchange for Gilad Schalit.
Hostages pay
Each deal reinforced the same lesson for Israel’s enemies: hostages pay. Hamas understood that hostages give it extraordinary leverage over Israel’s leaders, its politics, and its national psyche.
Here in lies Israel’s torment. The value it places on every individual life is among its greatest moral strengths. But it is also its strategic vulnerability; the country’s soft underbelly.
Israeli policymakers have long understood this. After Schalit was taken captive, then-defense minister Ehud Barak established the Shamgar Commission, headed by former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, to draft guidelines for future hostage scenarios.
Its recommendations were never made public, but reportedly included near-equal exchanges rather than exorbitant ones, not exchanging live prisoners for returned bodies, and limiting contact the families have with the political echelon to reduce emotional pressure.
Impossible to set limits while hostages are being held
The recommendations were never published, adopted, or anchored in law. Why not? Because it is almost impossible to set limits while hostages are being held.
Families will rightly argue that no principle should be proven on the backs of their loved ones. That argument is morally compelling. This is why guidelines must be established when no one is in captivity. And that moment is now.
In a Twitter/X post on Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for legislation to adopt the Shamgar recommendations “to prevent the next kidnapping.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asked about the issue at Tuesday’s press conference, did not dismiss the idea, but didn’t embrace it, either.
“The question is very complex, very difficult. It is not self-evident,” he said. “We need to think carefully about what safeguards and real limitations we are prepared to impose on ourselves - and actually uphold. There is no point in setting rules if we do not implement them afterward.”
He is right about one thing: half-measures are worse than none. Guidelines that crumble under pressure would only confirm Hamas’s assumptions.
But complexity doesn’t justify paralysis or indecision. Rather, it is the reason - as Netanyahu noted - for careful and deliberate action.
The balance between compassion and deterrence
Israel does not need to choose between compassion and deterrence. It needs to balance them. That balance cannot be improvised in the midst of a crisis, when hostages are being held. It must be decided beforehand in a transparent and sober manner.
Israel has tried, through military force, to make hostage-taking not worth the cost. The devastation in Gaza and the severe degradation of Hamas’s capabilities are meant to send that message. But as long as hostage deals remain wildly asymmetric - and as long as terrorists believe that Israeli society will always force its leaders’ hands - the incentive to take hostages will remain.
If Israel ever hopes to break the cycle, it will need clear, firm guidelines anchored in law. The time to set those guidelines is now, during that rare interlude when no Israeli - dead or alive - is in Hamas’ clutches.