Israelis once again poured into the streets and city squares across the country on Sunday. From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, from Haifa to Beersheba, hundreds of thousands of people rallied under one banner: bring the hostages home.
Nearly two years into the war, their message was clear and insistent – the government must cut a deal with Hamas, whatever the price, to free those still languishing in Gaza’s tunnels.
A statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, one of Sunday’s rally organizers, captured the urgency:
“We are losing them, and if we don’t bring them back now, we will lose them forever. For 22 months, we have called for comprehensive deals, but our pleas fell on deaf ears and hardened hearts. Time is running out for the hostages. Only the people will bring the hostages home.”
Three days later, Hamas delivered its own message. Seventeen terrorists stormed an IDF outpost near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, apparently aiming – among other things – to capture more soldiers alive. The attack was repelled, but the message was unmistakable: for Hamas, hostages remain a central pillar of its strategy.
These two events – one in the heart of Israel and the other in the heart of Gaza – capture the country’s core dilemma. A nation that rightly prides itself on never leaving anyone behind has, over the decades, turned hostages into the enemy’s most valuable bargaining chip. The result: the more Israelis demonstrate how much they care, the more Hamas understands how much it can extract.
For Hamas, hostages are the strategy
FOR HAMAS, hostages are not an afterthought or a battlefield improvisation; they are the strategy. Seizing Israelis alive – or even dead – delivers what no rocket barrage or ambush can: leverage. Leverage over Israel’s leaders, over its politics, over its domestic agenda.
This is not new. The history of Israel’s conflicts with its enemies is littered with hostage deals – from the 1985 Jibril Agreement that freed more than 1,150 security prisoners, including Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, in exchange for three captured soldiers, to the 2011 Gilad Schalit deal that saw 1,027 prisoners released for a single captive. Each precedent reinforced the lesson that hostages are Israel’s soft underbelly.
Hamas internalized this lesson long ago. The October 7 massacres were not only about killing, but also about kidnapping. Hostages were carted back into Gaza in cars, on motorcycles, even on foot. They were paraded, photographed, and hidden underground. They were immediately transformed into bargaining chips, insurance policies, and tools of psychological warfare.
Sunday’s protests which culminated in a massive rally in Tel Aviv only underscored the point. Even after months of devastating war, with Gaza in ruins and Hamas battered, hundreds of thousands of Israelis publicly broadcast to Hamas just how much power it still holds. The outpouring of solidarity was genuine and moving and reflected the country’s core values, but Hamas surely saw it as confirmation that its most reliable weapon still works.
Three days later, with Israel on the cusp of sending tens of thousands more soldiers and reservists into Gaza for an assault on Hamas’s last strongholds in Gaza City and the central refugee camps, Hamas sent a squad to attack an army outpost and take more hostages.
The message to Israelis was clear and twofold. First, come back into Gaza, and this is what awaits you. And second, we can – and will – take more hostages.
HAMAS’S FORMULA is brutally simple: kidnap Israelis, watch the country tie itself in knots, and wait. It worked in 1985, it worked in 2011, and Hamas calculated it would work again in 2023. The critics argue that unless Israel decisively breaks the cycle, it will work again in 2026, 2027, and beyond.
This is why many argue that Sunday’s rallies, as strong an outpouring of solidarity as they were, only serve to encourage Hamas. Every mother and father chanting in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv signals to Hamas commanders in Rafah’s tunnels that the tactic still pays dividends.
Here lies Israel’s torment: its greatest strength – the uncompromising value it places on every life – is also its greatest vulnerability.
Democracies elsewhere may preach about leaving no soldier behind, but in Israel, this is not rhetoric. It is a national ethos, woven into the collective identity. That ethos explains the rallies. It explains why the return of captives has consistently moved from a private concern to a national priority. And it explains why, nearly two years into the war, the plight of the hostages is still a central feature in Israeli life.
But Hamas knows this, too. It has weaponized Israel’s humanity. It banks on the fact that Israeli society cannot bear the thought of abandoning its own, even when the price is steep.
The debate over priorities was starkly illustrated this week when National Missions Minister Orit Strock declared she would support continuing the war in Gaza to topple Hamas, even if it risked the lives of hostages – a stance that drew widespread criticism.
The IDF can repel attackers on the battlefield, but it cannot so easily repel the moral and emotional pressure from its own people. That pressure has reshaped national debates, sparked massive demonstrations, and brought enormous strain on prime ministers from Yitzhak Rabin in the 1970s to Benjamin Netanyahu today.
The Khan Yunis attackers may not have succeeded in taking new hostages, but the attempt was a reminder: Hamas will keep trying because the prize is great and the vulnerability is glaring.
THIS IS something, obviously, that is not lost on Israel’s policy-makers. In 2008, while Schalit was being held, the government established a committee, headed by former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, to draw up guidelines for future hostage-taking scenarios.
The guidelines reportedly included near equal exchanges – not exorbitant ones like the Schalit deal – minimal contact between the political echelon and the families of hostages to reduce emotional pressure, and worsening the conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails to increase leverage on the terrorist organizations.
Tellingly, considering how horribly fraught this issue is, the findings were never formally released or adopted by the government. Israel has wrestled with this dilemma for decades, but the Khan Yunis raid and the Sunday protests, strikes, and rallies have brought it into sharp relief. And the options are brutally limited.
Military solution carries enormous risk, but diplomatic route has costs
A military solution – daring rescue operations deep inside Gaza – carries enormous risk. The Entebbe raid in 1976 remains a source of national pride, but it is the exception, not the rule. More often, attempts at rescue end in tragedy. Hamas has buried its captives in a labyrinth of tunnels precisely to prevent such daring rescues from succeeding.
The diplomatic route – striking deals – offers certainty but at a cost. Each exchange saves lives today but increases the likelihood of more kidnappings tomorrow. The Schalit deal is now largely viewed as a cautionary tale: among the hundreds of murderers released, many of whom went on to carry out other heinous attacks, was Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7.
A third path, altering the equation so that hostage-taking no longer pays, is much easier said than done.
Abandoning the hostages, for instance, is not an option. Israel’s aim of dismantling Hamas is, in part, an attempt to disincentivize hostage-taking. When the war is over and the damage in Gaza is assessed, the hope is that Palestinians will understand that hostage-taking is simply not worth it. However, the rewards the international community is dangling in front of the Palestinians – such as recognition of a Palestinian state – severely dilute that message.
Viewed broadly, the juxtaposition this week of the Tel Aviv rally and the Khan Yunis raid reveals much about Israel’s war aims and its national psyche.
The raid shows that Hamas, though degraded, is still breathing and capable of staging complicated operations. Its fighters may be on the run, its infrastructure destroyed, its leaders hunted or dead, but its tactical logic remains intact.
Hostage-taking is not a tactic that requires tanks or battalions – it requires only opportunity, a handful of fighters, and the willingness to die in the attempt. Hamas still has all three. A sobering thought as Israel is poised for a major offensive inside Gaza.
The protest and rallies show that after nearly two years of war, the hostages remain a burning issue in Israeli society, although not an uncontested one. For many, their plight embodies Israel’s deepest values, the belief that no one should be left behind and that the bond between state and citizen demands their return at almost any price.
Yet others worry that elevating the hostages above all else distorts the broader war aims, risks further empowering Hamas, and could mortgage Israel’s future security for present relief. Everyone agrees they cannot be forgotten, but not everyone agrees on what price should be paid to bring them home.
And so these two stories this week – one in Israel’s streets and city squares, the other in Gaza’s battlefields – are really part of the same reality. Israelis rally because they cannot imagine abandoning their own. Hamas raids because it cannot imagine a better strategy. The Khan Yunis raid was repelled. The rallies will continue. Somewhere between the two, Israel struggles to find a formula that protects both its people and its principles.
So far, that magic formula has proven elusive. One wonders whether it exists at all.