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Hamas Is Playing Games with Releasing Hostages

(Washington Post) Brett McGurk - Last week, Hamas once again showed why reaching a ceasefire deal was so elusive for so long: the group threatened to stop releasing hostages and return to war with Israel. As someone who helped lead months of ceasefire talks for the Biden administration, this did not come as a surprise. Throughout the ceasefire negotiations, Hamas consistently held back on a commitment to release hostages and aimed to ensure it remained in power after the war ends. President Joe Biden was right to stand firmly by Israel and demand the release of hostages by Hamas. And President Donald Trump is right to do the same. Hamas is a terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades. Its Oct. 7 attack, however, was not just an act of terrorism but a full-blown military invasion. More than 3,000 Hamas fighters in military formations attacked on multiple fronts, with a mission to inflict mass casualties and to take hostages, including mothers and toddlers, back inside Gaza to deter an Israeli response. A U.S.-mediated deal to release hostages in exchange for a ceasefire broke down less than two months into the crisis when Hamas refused to free young women it had agreed to release. Hamas then rejected continuing talks unless Israel accepted a permanent truce up front, with a return to the Oct. 6 status quo. While Hamas and its defenders claim it accepted another ceasefire framework in July 2024, that is not true. Hamas reinserted demands for a permanent truce. And never once agreed to a list of hostages that it would release if a ceasefire was agreed. Hamas refused to engage seriously on the essence of the deal: the hostages to be released during the ceasefire. Nor did Hamas seem to care about the civilians of Gaza, whose suffering would be greatly alleviated by a stop to the fighting. Hamas had no serious intent to release hostages so long as Iran and Hizbullah backed its maximalist demands with ongoing attacks against Israel. Then Israel, with U.S. backing, turned north to Lebanon, where it decimated Hizbullah and, with U.S. mediation, forged a ceasefire that severed Hizbullah's support for Hamas in Gaza. Iran on Oct. 26 fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel - the largest ballistic missile attack in history. U.S. and Israeli forces defeated that attack, and Israel soon responded with an attack of its own, eliminating Iran's strategic air defenses and its capacity to produce new missiles. The final stages of talks that began in December took place with the backdrop of a transformed Middle East. The talks ultimately succeeded because the military equation across the region changed, with Hamas isolated and no longer able to count on a multifront conflict. All this was achieved without the U.S. being drawn directly into an all-out Middle East war that so many analysts had predicted. The writer served as deputy assistant to the president and White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa from 2021 to 2025.
2025-02-18 00:00:00
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