Chaim Peri, one of the six hostages whose bodies have been recovered, was hiding in a safe room with his wife, Osnat, at their home in Nir Oz kibbutz when Hamas militants came to the door. Osnat said he saved her life by going with them before they entered the room where she was hidden.
Yesterday’s news was “a devastating blow” to Israelis, said Dahlia Scheindlin. “It brings a sense of overwhelming sadness – and a feeling of being in the dark. You almost feel you know less than you did before: how long where they dead for? How did they die? So the first response is despair.”
After that comes disbelief at those who continue to argue that only war can save the hostages – and questions over whether Netanyahu or Hamas are serious about a deal. Yesterday, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid emphasised the sense of urgency, saying: “Days are passing, and we are losing more hostages. We must make a deal. We must. Now.”
Here’s what you need to know about the mood in Israel, and how it could shape what happens next.
What do the Israeli public want?
Reliable majorities of Israelis support a deal to get the hostages out, and even when conditions that they may find uncomfortable are attached – like a complete cessation of hostilities – a plurality still prioritises the hostages, Scheindlin said. (She wrote about the polling data in some detail in June.)
“I’ve never seen anything that shows the reverse,” she said. “But the minority is not a small minority. It’s usually between 30% and 38%, and that is just about the size of Netanyahu’s core constituency.”
One argument from some Israeli liberals is that many of those who support a deal in theory are committed to an idea of the hostages as, in the words of commentator Roger Alpher, “the yearned-for common denominator that is held above politics”, but that “behind all the fake hostage folklore, there is no solidarity”. Scheindlin rejects that view. “I don’t see it in the data,” she said. “People are clear about what a deal would entail. Certainly, sometimes they may not like it – but they are prepared for the trade-offs.”
Where do the talks stand?
While US officials have suggested that an agreement on a US “bridging proposal” is near, and that Netanyahu has accepted it, Hamas has accused Washington of caving to Israeli demands and says “it is a manoeuvre that gives the Israelis more time”. There appear to still be large gaps between the two sides.
On the central issue of the hostages, Hamas is demanding assurances that Israel would not begin military operations again after a first tranche of 30 of the most vulnerable are released. Israel is concerned that Hamas will drag out a second phase in which the remaining hostages, including male soldiers, are freed.
That phased approach has drawn criticism of Netanyahu from those who believe that all of the hostages should be freed as quickly as possible. “He does seem to be dropping hints that this time he’s more willing to edge towards a deal,” Scheindlin said. “There have been what appear to be managed leaks suggesting that the government will not fall if there is a deal, despite the opposition from the far right.”
Hamas’s priorities are an opaque question on their own. “The ball does appear to be in their court,” Scheindlin said. “They have to consider whether they want to be blamed for the next phase of the war, which could be Armageddon in Gaza. They may not have the same considerations as me, but it is a mistake to say they are not rational in their decision making.”
What do we know about the hostages’ circumstances?
Between a third and half of the hostages are believed to be dead; the condition of the rest is unknown. Most are civilians; most are men, with women and children forming the bulk of the previous swap deal; some are elderly.
Not all are being held by Hamas, with some under the control of other armed groups, but it is likely that Hamas would be able to secure release in the great majority of cases. While some have been held in apartment blocks – including the four who were freed during a June operation that killed at least 274 Palestinians according to Gaza’s health ministry – many are likely now in Hamas’s underground tunnel network. That makes it hard to see how military operations alone can secure their freedom.
There is limited information about recent conditions, but many of those released last year painted a grim picture. Doctors who treated members of that group described intense trauma, and children being sedated with ketamine or benzodiazepines. There were multiple accounts of sexual abuse, and a UN report found “convincing information” that women had been raped and subjected to sexualised torture. Israel’s health ministry said that the freed hostages had lost 17-33 pounds in the seven weeks of their captivity.
As for the fate of those who remain: “There’s been a lot of conflicting information,” Scheindlin said. “Some may have been killed by their individual captors; some died because conditions were so poor; some were killed by Israeli fire. And there may be some cases where Hamas is not sure about where they are.” She points to the case of Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 1. “Hamas wanted to get rid of women and children in the first round – it is not good PR for them to still be captive. They may not know whether they’re alive or dead.”
There have meanwhile been warnings that Palestinian detainees held by Israel have been tortured and sexually abused. 53 Palestinians have died in Israeli military facilities and prisons since 7 October, the UN Human Rights Office said in July, with doctors, journalists and human rights defenders among the detained. This piece from earlier this month has more detail on some of the cases.
Why might time be running out to free them?
There are two main senses in which the clock is ticking, as Blinken suggests: because it is always possible that more hostages will die, a risk that only grows with time; and because the prospect of an Iranian attack after the recent killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran if no deal is reached would likely reshape the conflict in seismic, unpredictable ways.
“It only gets harder,” Scheindlin said. “It is always the last chance for anyone who will not live to see another day, that’s obvious. And at the geopolitical level, I expect an Iranian response sooner rather than later. If there’s a regional war, all bets are off – and the chaos will mean that there’s nobody to negotiate with. In that context, the idea that some grand military response is the way to get them out looks increasingly unhinged.”
While Hamas obviously shoulders a great share of the responsibility, many of the hostages’ families are focused on Netanyahu. Shahar Moz, whose uncle Avraham Munder was one of the six whose bodies have been found, told Haaretz the news “only underscores how critical the urgency and the necessity of releasing everyone who is there alive … Body retrievals don’t impress me. There are live people for whom Israel isn’t doing the maximum it can to rescue them.”
