Letter: Hostage Relatives to Congress: Take Us to Our Leader

Dear editor:

Bruce Ticker has correctly reported the atrocities visited upon Israelis by Hamas on October 7, 2023. He also noted that the price Hamas is demanding for releasing the hostages is too high. (“Column: Hostage Relatives to Congress: Take Us to Our Leader” Boulder Jewish News August 1, 2024) Yet, he does not seem to understand that Hamas’ vow to inflict thousands of October 7’s on Israelis, and the glee with which Gazans celebrated this promise, necessitate Israel achieve its goal – a decisive victory in the war – eliminating Hamas, demilitarizing Gaza, and deradicalizing the Palestinians.

Israel knows, only too well, how good deeds can often be reciprocated with treachery. In 2006, an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was abducted into Gaza via an underground tunnel stretching from Gaza into Israel. Shalit was held for five years and released in 2011, in exchange for 1,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. One of those prisoners was Yahya Sinwar, who had received life-saving treatment during his internment. He is now known to be one of the masterminds of the October 7 atrocities.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/26/world/middleeast/hamas-sinwar-israel-doctor-prison-swap.html

I am sure Mr. Ticker will agree with me when I say true seekers of peace should not have been calling for a ceasefire deal with Hamas in the hopes of seeing the hostages released. Rather, the peace seekers should have been urging Hamas to release the hostages and surrender to Israeli troops.

I further agree with Mr. Ticker. The “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators have shown no concern for the Palestinians living under Hamas administration, an administration which made no effort to develop the Gazan economy but spent one billion dollars constructing its extensive network of terror tunnels, embedding the fortification amid the Gaza populace and turning the people in Gaza into human shields.

However, I cannot agree with Mr. Ticker when he asserts that Israel hasn’t done enough to avoid collateral damage as it strives to destroy Hamas. In fact, Major John Spencer, head of West Point’s Modern Warfare Institute notes that, in Gaza, Israel has achieved an amazingly low ratio of 1.5:1 between civilian deaths and combatant deaths while ratios as high as 9:1 have occurred in similar instances of recent fighting in densely populated areas like Gaza. We also need to recall that casualty figures reported by Hamas are often exaggerated and place all the blame on Israel, while ignoring how the activities of Hamas and other terrorist groups endanger the people in Gaza. Thus, while Hamas, early in the war, claimed an Israeli airstrike had killed 500 people at the al-Ahli hospital, it was later discovered that the damage was caused by a rocket (fired at Israel by Palestinian Islamic Jihad) which crashed in the hospital’s parking lot where it ignited munitions stored there. No more than 50 people suffered injuries. More recently, an Israeli precision attack on a building where two Hamas leaders were meeting was said to have killed 35 Gazans living in a “safe zone” nearby. Again, Israel had used the smallest possible weapon which would accomplish the mission, but sparks ignited munitions buried in the zone designated for sheltering civilians.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-804432

Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA