Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not take U.S. President Donald Trump up on his offer to return to war but instead secured the release of three hostages from Gaza last week. He made this choice because he was “stuck between a rock and a hard place,” according to Ruthie Blum, senior contributing editor for JNS.
Blum explained that had Netanyahu refused the three hostages and sent the army back into Gaza to “blitz the crap out of everybody,” Hamas would not have returned any captives. He would then have been blamed for endangering lives he could have saved.
“Anyone who suggests that Netanyahu only cares about his coalition and keeping his seat and doesn't care about the hostages, I think, is being immoral because that isn't true,” Blum said during ILTV’s Insider earlier this week. “He's actually trying to satisfy as much of the Israeli public as he can, and that is an impossible task.”
Watch the full Insider with Blum, ILTV Executive Editor Maayan Hoffman, and veteran journalist Tovah Lazaroff:
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On Thursday, Hamas returned the bodies of four hostages to Israel. However, DNA tests confirmed only three of them: Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were found to have been brutally murdered in captivity, and Oded Lifshitz. The body of Shiri Bibas, Kfir and Ariel’s mother, did not match the expected DNA.
The IDF condemned the act, stating, “This is a very serious violation by the terrorist organization Hamas, which is required by the agreement to return four dead hostages. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our hostages.”
Another six hostages are expected to be released on Saturday, including two who have been held since 2014 and 2015: Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed. The other four—Tal Shoham, Omer Shem-Tov, Omer Wenkert, and Eliya Cohen—were kidnapped on October 7.