THE THREATENING, CHAOTIC ENVIRONMENT OF THE HOSTAGE RELEASE

The unseeming parading of our Jewish hostages

Gratitude for the return of kidnapped Israelis and others cannot excuse the grotesque spectacle of their release. 

 

By Jacki Karsh

 

JNS

Feb 3, 2025

 

 

Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen in Khan Yunis, where released Israeli hostages were ushered through a mob of howling and hostile Gazans.

 

If you’ve ever imagined a dystopian scene from “The Hunger Games,” it likely resembled the recent despicable Hamas parade in Gaza City. On Jan. 25, four young Israeli women—Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag—were released from captivity. These young soldiers, who had been violently abducted from the Nahal Oz base during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, were subjected to months of abuse and torment by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. But their release was not a show of humanity. Instead, it was a macabre pageant meant for humiliation and propaganda.

A stage adorned with anti-Zionist banners reading “Zionism will not prevail” in Hebrew, Arabic and English was erected specifically for this occasion. Hundreds of cheering Gazans surrounded the stage, alongside armed and masked Hamas fighters. The young women were paraded like prizes of war. The Israeli women were forced to march across the platform, dressed in military attire given to them by their captors, and wave to the jeering crowd. The choreographed display included props, banners and uniforms that were anything but improvised.

This wasn’t a desperate act of an impoverished people—the narrative that has been spun this entire war. It was a corporate-like production meant to instill fear, maximize Jewish suffering and publicize Hamas’s supposed dominance.

Of course, we are all thrilled to have our hostages returned. Their freedom after such a harrowing ordeal is cause for immense relief and gratitude. But how they are returned should matter. The way Hamas conducts these hostage releases is dehumanizing and calculated to prolong Jewish pain and humiliation until the final moments. This is not just a hostage handover; it is a theater of terror.

On Jan. 18, a similarly grotesque display unfolded when three Israeli civilians—Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher—were released after more than 470 days in captivity. The visuals were equally striking: innocent women, visibly exhausted and terrorized, emerged into a chaotic scene. They were surrounded by heavily armed Hamas terrorists and jeering Gazans as they were escorted into a Red Cross vehicle. Media descriptions of this exchange only added insult to injury. The New York Times described the women as walking “under their own power,” failing to acknowledge the threatening, chaotic environment. PBS referred to the crowd as “jostling,” a term that downplayed the aggression and volatility of the mob as it clawed at the Red Cross vans. 

Hamas even involves the Red Cross in these charades. The International Committee of the Red Cross—a body tasked with upholding universal humanitarian standards—facilitates these chaotic exchanges without apparent objection to the humiliating displays. They legitimize these farcical ceremonies by signing Hamas-created certificates and turn a blind eye to final efforts to degrade the treatment of the captives. The hostages are handed these certificates of release as though they were participants in some twisted ceremony. Gonen, Damari and Steinbrecher were even given “gift bags” from Gaza. CNN’s Becky Anderson interviewed the president of the ICRC, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, just days later, on Jan. 22, when Egger admitted in the interview that “there were hundreds of thousands of people in the street, and I still believe there are means to coordinate more tightly and to have certain mechanisms in place that would avoid the exposure of those that need to be brought back to their families.”

Hamas knows precisely what it is doing. These operations are meticulously planned. They broadcast these exchanges live on Arabic TV and stage multiple-thousand-dollar digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera-wielding crews capturing every angle, with the videos edited and mass-produced for global consumption and released within hours.

Consider the stark contrast in how other hostage releases in recent memory have been handled. When Brittney Griner was freed from Russian custody, her exchange was conducted quietly, shielded from public spectacle. Likewise, Trevor Reed, an American Marine arrested in Russia, was released with no cheering crowds and no parade only a tarmac exchange.

Yet for Israeli hostages, the release is radically different—a final hurrah to mock the Jew and broadcast Hamas’s narrative to the world.

International leaders commend the release of hostages but fail to acknowledge this final humiliation inflicted on them up to the last moment. Has the international community tacitly accepted this degradation as an acceptable cost for freeing Jews? Imagine if Jewish hostages were treated with the same dignity afforded to others. Picture a release conducted with privacy, calm and respect for the victims’ humanity. Of course, this won’t happen—just as there was never a global rallying cry demanding that Hamas release these innocent people in the first place.

The tragic reality is that the global Jewish population will have to endure this awful charade for several more weeks. We will have to watch as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad continue to parade our people in front of the cameras. The childishness of it—the banners, certificates, staged applause—is as infuriating as it is dehumanizing. And yet, the world will remain silent, unwilling to call out the deliberate final act of cruelty so plainly on display.

These videos should be moments of moral clarity for everyone. They should underscore unequivocally the nature of Hamas and the terror it inflicts. But the world has accepted that chaos and humiliation are the price Jews must pay for their freedom.