Two years ago, Hamas launched the largest single-day massacre of Jews since World War II. Using land, sea, and air assets (parasailing), Hamas terrorists and other Gaza militia raped, pillaged, and murdered throughout southern Israel, including at a music festival that had dedicated itself to peace. The death count hit over 1200 on that day, with another 250 Israelis and foreign workers taken hostage, with Hamas bragging about its Operation Al-Aqsa Flood -- and promising more to come until they could completely destroy Israel.
Now, on the second anniversary, Gaza lies in ruins and Hamas still holds 48 hostages, with fewer than half of those still left alive. Israel found itself in an existential fight with three Iranian proxies plus Iran itself, fended all of them off, and yet the world keeps rushing to blame them for the war. Now Hamas, Hezbollah, and even Iran are shadows of their former selves, still dangerous but far less powerful than on October 7, 2023, when it appeared they might combine to attempt a full conquest of Israel.
The question now is whether Hamas will admit defeat, depart Gaza and disarm, and most importantly release the remaining hostages. After the IDF surrounded Gaza City, Donald Trump offered them a final chance to meet that condition for an immediate cessation, raising hopes of the hostages' return. Two days after the deadline, however, nothing much has changed, and negotiators are not optimistic that changes will come soon. And of course, this is being blames on you know who:
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman says that “if Hamas hands over the hostages, that would mean the end of the war,” in comments to reporters in Doha.
Majed al-Ansari also says that Israel should have ceased operations in Gaza already, in line with US President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
“We await the outcomes of the negotiations in the coming days regarding the ceasefire. This question should be directed first to the Israeli occupation government. It was supposed to actually cease fire if the statements made by the prime minister there regarding adherence to the Trump plan were true,” Ansari says.
Is Israel the problem? Hamas took hostages, a war crime (among many others), and is hardly repentant. They continue to use human shields in Gaza while conducting terror operations elsewhere. In fact, Hamas officially celebrated its October 7 atrocities in a message released today:
Hamas celebrated the October 7 Massacre as a “glorious day” in a message commemorating the two years since the terror group invaded southern Israel and massacred 1200 Israelis.
The video celebrated the invading terrorists as “heroes” fighting in “defense of their religion and homeland.”
Does that sound like a terror group about to disarm and release its hostages?
Donald Trump thinks progress is being made, however. He denies telling Benjamin Netanyahu to stop being pessimistic about prospects for a deal and insists that the Israeli PM shares his hope that a deal will come soon. If so, though, would it be on Trump's terms as dictated last week?
Trump at times has avoided criticizing Netanyahu in public, even as reports have mounted about his private frustration with the Israeli premier, including during a tense phone call last week in which the Axios news site reported the US president responded angrily when Netanyahu said Hamas’s ambivalent response was “nothing to celebrate.”
Asked whether he has any red lines for Hamas in the fresh round of negotiations that kicked off Monday in Egypt, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he does.
“If certain things aren’t met, we’re not going to do it,” he said. ...
The American leader added that he was “pretty sure” there’s going to be a ceasefire and hostage release agreement, saying Hamas had been “fine” as of late.
“I think we’re going to have a deal… They’ve been trying to have a deal with Gaza literally for centuries,” Trump said.
If "they" means Hamas, they haven't been trying for a deal at all, at least not one that keeps Israel in place and secure. Every ceasefire to which Hamas has agreed in Gaza has been broken -- by Hamas, every time. Even when the ceasefires were in place, Hamas used Gaza to rain down missiles and rockets on civilian population centers in Israel. These have not been cease-fires as much as they have been tactical hudnas, meant only to provide the Islamist annihilationist terror networks enough time and resources to restart their war with Israel.
Still, the hostage families believe that they can see light at the end of a very long and bleak tunnel. The wife of one of the remaining living hostages, Lisha Miran-Lavi, credits Trump for providing the first glimmer of hope she has had in a very long while:
Over the past weeks, I have witnessed something I thought was impossible: momentum.
The outlines of a deal that could finally end this horror are within reach.
It could bring Omri and all 48 remaining hostages home.
It could end the war, disarm and disband Hamas and give both Israelis and Gazans a chance to heal and rebuild.
I know these negotiations are complicated and fragile, but I also know that leadership is measured by the courage to do the impossible.
President Donald Trump has shown that courage.
Is such a deal possible? Yes. However, it's not likely, and the longer that these negotiations drag out, the less likely that Hamas will ever agree to Trump's terms, let alone comply with them. Hamas is already making the hostage release conditional on a full Israeli withdrawal, making their supposed "agreement" to Trump's terms a lie. Trump had the courage to give this a chance, to be sure, but Netanyahu has every justification to approach this skeptically as though it will go differently than every other round of Hamas Hokey Pokey that preceded it.
The only real hope in this equation is the elimination of resupply to Hamas from Iran and other malefactors. That may force Hamas' hand more than anything else, but even then, it might take the full sack of Gaza City to get Hamas into a desperate enough position for capitulation. And Trump will have to decide whether he has the courage to enforce the red lines he's already set with Hamas, or fall into the same trap as every one of his predecessors in this office by treating Hamas like a political party rather than a network of radical terrorists under the control of Tehran.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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