The dramatic rescue of four hostages in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has brought some very uncomfortable facts to the fore that those demonstrating in solidarity with Hamas do not want to face. As the American-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas teeters again on the precipice, it is important for everyone to understand what is really happening in Gaza, especially the role of “innocent civilians” in the battle.
Noa Agramani has been one of the most recognised faces among the 250 Israelis and other nationals abducted by Hamas terrorists and taken back to Gaza on October 7, 2023. Her rescue and subsequent testimony of life as a hostage has certainly put paid to the narrative that it’s a black-and-white situation, with Israeli soldiers turning helpless Palestinian people in Gaza into cannon fodder and Hamas being heroic freedom fighters.
It has emerged that Noa was held hostage in the house of a journalist and a doctor—notably the two professions that have been at the forefront of the story about what is happening inside Gaza. Now it is clear that no one can be taken as impartial or as non-sympathisers of Hamas; from reporters to medical staff, many are hand in glove with the terrorists. That certainly puts a huge question mark on the veracity of their accounts of the war.
The Palestinian journalist Abdullah Al-Jamal, killed during the rescue operation, may have been just a contributor to a US-based Palestinian journal rather than an employee of Al-Jazeera as was initially alleged, but media organisations do have “sources” that supply information. Al-Jamal could be just one of many such willing ‘non-combatants’ who supplied information to media outlets—and helped Hamas by keeping hostages in his home.
Noa, 26, Almog Meir, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were held captive in two apartments in the densely-populated Nuseirat refugee camp. Noa told family and friends after being rescued that she was made to do menial work for her captors. That her location remained unknown to Israelis for so long and she was even moved to several apartments undetected indicates sympathy for Hamas among the ‘civilian’ population.
In the video circulated by the IDF of their rescue of the four Israelis in two simultaneous operations, its soldiers can be seen coming under heavy fire. Hamas put the death toll of this Israeli rescue mission at 274 and IDF averred it was “under 100” Palestinian casualties but neither indicated the number of civilians and combatants. The level of gunfire, however, indicated a big Hamas presence in that supposedly residential location.
But that fact escaped the notice of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who expressed “condemnation” for what he claimed were the deaths of “hundreds of Palestinian civilians,” and the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called it a “bloodbath.” Surely Hamas keeping up a barrage of gunfire at the IDF rescue team meant it had no qualms about civilian Palestinians becoming collateral damage? More deaths, more protests?
This latest rescue sounds uncannily like a redux of what happened on 4 July 1976, although the reactions of the world to the actions of an Israeli commando team that day were markedly different from the tenor in international forums now. On that day, Israeli commandos had flown 4,000 km to rescue 106 of its nationals being held hostage by a Palestinian terror group and two German affiliates at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda.
They managed to bring back 102, three were killed during the operation and one was murdered while in hospital by Ugandan soldiers, whose leader Idi Amin supported the Palestinians. The only Israeli casualty that day was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s older brother Yonatan, the team leader. Netanyahu’s determination to rescue all Israelis still held alive—and recover the bodies of those killed—is thus not hard to understand.
The Gaza operation was carried out by the Yamam counter-terrorism unit and the Shin Bet intelligence agency along with the IDF. Like the Entebbe rescue, this mission was also planned for weeks, after getting precise information on the hostages’ locations and the layout of the area. And like Yonatan Netanyahu’s death at Entebbe, this mission too unfortunately led to the fatal wounding of Yamam’s chief inspector Arnon Zmora.
The Yamam unit entered the two buildings at the same time but whereas Noa was extracted without a problem, the other operation resulted in a gun battle in which Zmora suffered fatal injuries. An IDF officer later said many Hamas fighters came out—possibly from the warren of tunnels—as the hostages were being extracted leading to the heavy exchanges heard and seen in the IDF video. So the targeted area was clearly not totally “civilian”.
What more proof does the world need to conclude Hamas is cynically stashing hostages amid “civilian” families knowing the potential danger of doing so. During the rescue operations, the collateral damage was high but that was because Hamas deliberately chose to keep the hostages in that residential area. Hamas also used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades against the IDF, showing their disregard for civilians in combat zones.
The impartiality of doctors, reporters and other “civilians” in this new type of war is definitely questionable. That the hostages did not even think of escaping indicates that the “civilians” in the apartments and alleys around them were very much part of the Hamas cordon and would have prevented them from doing so. But international organisations and world leaders appear to be playing to the gallery and ignoring these unpleasant truths.
World reactions remain remarkably skewed, with some leaders calling this Israeli rescue effort a “war crime”—while nominally “criticising” Hamas too, of course. As legal experts have pointed out, no international court or tribunal has ever considered prosecuting those who conduct hostage rescue missions. And yet there is a concerted effort to brand all Israeli actions illegal, via protests in many countries and pressures on political leaderships.
Current international law cannot address or redress wars between a terror group and a country. As more nations come under attack from terrorist outfits—India has long been a target—new laws and codes of conduct must be formulated to deal with this, wherein the legitimate entity is not put on par with an illegal organisation and “combatants” are redefined. A nation has a sovereign right to defend its territory and citizens; terror groups do not.
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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