I was cruising around on Twitter and saw something that blew my mind: Hamas is refusing to let any of the 600 American citizens (and 400 Canadians, and who knows how many others from elsewhere) who were in Gaza at the time of the attacks to leave.

Uh, wut? Why didn’t I know this before, and why hasn’t the media made a big deal of it?

So Hamas is essentially holding them hostage too!

— Pat Fuller 🟧🟦☮️ (@bannerite) October 30, 2023

At issue are Americans who were in Gaza on 10/7, whom Hamas has refused to allow passage out of the country.

The nugget was buried in a story about the suspension of flights out of Israel that had been facilitated by the State Department. Apparently, most of the Americans remaining in Israel have chosen to stay there, and I have to say that I don’t blame them. It’s not like the cities outside Israel are looking too safe for Jews right now.

Meanwhile, the nearly 600 U.S. citizens in Gaza are unable to leave because “Hamas is making a number of demands before they’ll allow people to leave Gaza … Just as we believe they ought to release all hostages they are holding, we believe they ought to … let leave all the American citizens and other foreign nationals who are being basically forced to remain in Gaza against their will because Hamas won’t uphold its responsibility to operate its side of the Rafah crossing,” Miller said.

So Hamas is making “demands” before they will allow free passage for foreign nationals who are trapped in the war zone.

What a surprise.

US says Hamas making number of demands before it will allow people to leave Gaza https://t.co/HtyJE0mfnX

They are playing chicken with the USA and testing Biden's will. This is classic Palestinian terrorism. Hamas could easily work with Egypt to let foreigners trapped in…

— Irene Rabinowitz 🇮🇱 (@irenerabinowitz) October 30, 2023

“Just as we believe they ought to release all hostages they are holding, we believe they ought to… let leave all the American citizens and other foreign nationals who are being basically forced to remain in Gaza against their will because Hamas won’t uphold its responsibility to operate its side of the Rafah crossing,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly on Monday reiterated a call for a humanitarian pause, and said there is little time left to get Canadians and hostages out while delivering badly needed aid.

“Four hundred Canadians are trapped in Gaza, they are living in fear and despair… and that is why we need humanitarian pauses, a humanitarian truce, in Gaza,” Joly said in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto.

Her comments and those of Miller underscored the growing understanding that foreign nationals trapped in Gaza are being held hostage to the hostilities.

Suddenly we learn that there are another 1000 hostages in Gaza, and that only includes the North American citizens we know of. We have to assume that there are hundreds or thousands more from other countries who are trapped in Gaza.

It is likely that many of the people in question have some ties to Gaza or Gazans, but just as likely that many do not or do not want to be there. It would be pretty surprising to learn that many of them wouldn’t jump at the chance to leave a war zone.

Hamas has gone to great lengths to put its own citizens at risk in the conflict, presumably because civilian deaths serve a tremendous propaganda purpose, and they view dying in a conflict as martyrdom. Having thousands of foreigners trapped in the war zone gives them quite a bit of leverage–obviously. Foreign Minister Joly said as much.

It’s easy to understand why government officials wouldn’t want to emphasize the size of the hostage crisis. First and most obviously it is a serious political embarrassment, but as importantly they may believe that publicity about the issue may make resolving it more difficult. Diplomats always prefer things to be low-key in negotiations, especially when they don’t have the upper hand.

But the media’s soft-pedaling of this issue is more perplexing. It’s got everything you would expect in a big story, but so far the only mention I have seen have been in these asides.

Odd.