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Video: The Israeli Hostages Were Held and Jailed by Palestinian Civilians
(BBC News) Lt.-Col. (ret.) Jonathan Conricus - Following Saturday's hostage rescue, former IDF Spokesperson Lt.-Col. (ret.) Jonathan Conricus told BBC that there are still 120 Israeli hostages in Gaza, "we still have Iranian proxies all around us aiming to kill Israelis and to kill Jews, and we still have a lot of work to do in order to return to safety and security in Israel....There is still a lot of fighting left for us to be safe in our homeland." "The whole civilian issue here really needs to be analyzed impartially and understood....The Israeli hostages were held and jailed by Palestinian civilians in a Palestinian civilian area....What was the role of the surrounding community and the hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians who, for sure, were aware of the fact that the Israeli hostages were being held in their midst?" Q: Would there have been a warning to those civilians to get out on time? Conricus: "For sure, we cannot anticipate for Israel to be warning ahead of a raid to save hostages, because then, what the terrorists would do is to kill the hostages and that would defeat the purpose, so of course we cannot expect that." "There was a significant firefight. According to testimony of Israeli soldiers, there were RPGs, rockets, heavy machine gun fire, grenades being thrown, and I think we cannot rule out that at least some of the alleged Palestinian casualties were the result of reckless Palestinian fire." "The bottom line here...is that, again, just like we saw in Rafah three months ago, Israeli civilians were held hostage by Palestinian civilians.... We have the complicity of Palestinian civilians." "A ceasefire is not an aim to aspire to, but victory is what Israel aspires to; victory in order to defend Israeli civilians; in order to allow them back home; victory in order to get the hostages back. A ceasefire, in my humble opinion, is defeat for Israel and a victory for Hamas, and as such it is not what Israelis aspire to do because a ceasefire would mean an existing Hamas and it would mean further attacks against Israel just months or perhaps a year from now."