How Gaza hostage diplomacy could dictate the course of Israel-Hamas war

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Released after 13 days in captivity, US citizens Natalie Shoshana Raanan and Judith Tai Raanan were among roughly 230 people taken hostage by Hamas during the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. (AFP)
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Updated 02 November 2023
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How Gaza hostage diplomacy could dictate the course of Israel-Hamas war

  • Hamas took an estimated 230 hostages, including children and elderly people, during its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel
  • The politics and tactics of hostage-taking is the subject of the latest report by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit

LONDON: One of the defining images that emerged in the aftermath of the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 was a frame taken from a video, widely disseminated on social media, showing an elderly Israeli woman being driven away into captivity on a golf cart.

It was no coincidence that this image was released, nor that it was so widely used by media organizations around the world. Kidnapping is a visceral act, designed precisely to generate emotional responses that can only benefit the agenda of the hostage-takers.

Yaffa Adar, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother, was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar, close to the border with Gaza.

In the photograph she sits wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by armed men yet gazing ahead with an incongruously calm expression.




Yaffa Adar, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother who was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, remains in captivity. (Hatem Ali/AP)

She is, as her granddaughter Adva Adar told Reuters on the day of the attacks, “a strong lady ... she’s sitting trying to show them she’s not afraid and she’s not hurt.”

And then she echoed the plaintive plea of every family that has ever suffered the agony of seeing a loved one snatched from their everyday world and held hostage as a pawn in a political game that is beyond their control.




This image taken from video released by Al Qassam brigades on its Telegram channel, shows Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, center, and Nurit Cooper, 79, being escorted by Hamas as they are released to the Red Cross in an unknown location on Oct. 23, 2023. (Al Qassam Brigades via AP)

“I have a message, I have a hope that they will understand that these people have done nothing wrong,” said Adar, fighting back tears.

“I can’t even start to understand how people think it makes sense to kidnap an 85-year-old lady, to kidnap babies, kidnap kids.”

But of course, as those who are holding Yaffa Adar and an estimated 230 other hostages know all too well, in the cold-blooded logic of those who seek to leverage political advantage by placing governments under extreme emotional pressure, kidnapping vulnerable children and old ladies makes the most perfect, terrible sense.

The politics and tactics of hostage-taking is the subject of the latest report published by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit. The author is James Denselow, a writer on Middle East politics and security issues who has worked for the UK-based foreign policy think-tank Chatham House and international NGOs.

In “The Hostage Dilemma,” Denselow reviews the long and much-practised business of “hostage diplomacy,” which, he writes, has been a weapon in the arsenal of terror groups and rogue governments for decades.

From the recent and controversial release in September of five prisoners each by Iran and the US, following agreement by the American government to unfreeze $6 billion of Iranian assets, to the holding hostage for 444 days of 52 Americans seized at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, “perhaps the most challenging response to hostage diplomacy,” writes Denselow, “is the inconsistent policies of states toward it.”




Pro-Iran Revolution activists held 53 American citizens hostage for 444 days until Jan. 20, 1981. (Getty Images/File)

The truth of this observation can be seen now in the unfolding Gaza crisis, where the raw emotions unleashed by the plight of so many hostages is preventing a unified international response, and even muddying the waters for Israeli military planners.

The awful reality is that, even as it releases a token few hostages here and there, Hamas is seen by its critics as indifferent to the fate of the people it has taken, beyond keeping at least some of them alive long enough for the prospect of their release — or their deaths — to serve its purpose.

Desperately concerned for their loved ones, and tortured daily by thoughts of what they must be going through, many of the families of the hostages have, in effect, become the unwilling allies of their captors.

Ever since the hostages were taken, pressure on the Israeli government at home and from around the world to enter into negotiations with their captors has mounted daily.

The horror the families are dealing with was emphasised on Monday with the news that Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli woman who was living in Tel Aviv and was thought to have been kidnapped from the scene of the massacre at the music festival at the start of the attacks on Oct. 7, was in fact dead.




Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli kidnapped by Hamas militants, was confirmed dead on Oct. 30, 2023. (Instagram)

The gruesome details of how Louk’s death was confirmed will serve only to pile on more pressure, not only on Israel but also on all the governments now facing pleas from frantic families.

Israeli forensic scientists identified Louk from DNA extracted from a fragment of skull bone, which so far is the only part of her body that has been recovered.

Hamas is thought to be holding several other Germans, among the citizens of some 24 other countries who were snatched on Oct. 7, and who together account for half of the hostages now being held.

In addition to coping with the mounting pressure from its own increasingly angry families, who fear their loved ones will be murdered by Hamas or fall victims to Israeli bombs and bullets in Gaza, the government is now having to deal with a wide range of demands and diplomatic pressure from other nations around the world.


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Whether by accident or design, there are, in fact, more hostages from other countries being held than citizens of Israel, including 54 Thai nationals, 15 Argentinians, 12 Germans, 12 Americans, six French and six Russians, and this serves Hamas well.

And, although on Wednesday some holders of foreign passports were allowed to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, international concern remains high for the citizens of many countries who have found themselves trapped by the conflict in increasingly desperate conditions.

On Monday a UK Cabinet minister said that the 200 Britons trapped in Gaza were, in effect, also hostages, trapped by Hamas’ refusal to allow them to leave, despite direct pleas by the US and other countries.

Their plight was thrown into sharp focus when Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf disclosed that his own parents, who had been visiting Gaza, had run out of drinking water.

 

 

A seemingly endless flow of similar stories is piling pressure onto the Israeli government from countries that defend Israel’s right to defend itself, but not at the cost of the innocent lives of their own citizens who, through no fault of their own, find themselves pawns in the Hamas game plan.

“The mass hostage-taking of Israelis, many of whom were children or the elderly, as well as high numbers of dual nationals, is a crucial component of the deadly equation of the crisis currently playing out between Israel and Hamas,” Denselow told Arab News.

“The taking of hostages was seemingly a key objective — not an opportunistic act — of the attack itself.”

And, as Hamas will surely have intended, “some of the families of hostages taken have already proven to be some of the most powerful advocates of diplomacy and military de-escalation to see their relatives returned safely.”

Cracks are appearing in Israeli society, ramping up the level of political jeopardy faced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Organizing via WhatsApp and the hashtag “Bring them home now,” on Saturday the Hostages and Missing Families Forum gathered at Israel’s Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, carrying photographs of the missing and demanding to know what the government planned to do to save their lives.




Israelis protest outside the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv on October 19, 2023, to demand the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)

The previous week Hamas had announced that 50 hostages had already died under Israeli bombardment in Gaza. Now Friday night’s incursions into Gaza by Israeli forces had only ratcheted up the anxiety of relatives, stoking fears that Israel’s much-advertised bombing of 150 underground targets had been carried out with little or no concern for the hostages possibly being held in Hamas tunnels.

“Why this offensive? There is no rush. Hamas wasn’t going anywhere,” one man at the protest told the media as he stood holding a picture of his missing 19-year-old nephew, and a poster that read: “Don’t abandon us twice.”

The mood among the protesters was that the government had already failed the hostages once for having allowed the unprecedented attack of Oct. 7 to take place virtually unchallenged. Now, many believe, morally, the government has only one option — to release all Palestinians held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the hostages.

The cry, “All the prisoners for all the hostages,” that is echoing ominously in Israel’s corridors of power will no doubt be music to the ears of the Hamas leadership.

For now, Hamas appears to be in complete control of the increasingly tense standoff between the Israeli government, its own people, and the under-pressure governments of many of its global allies, and only small adjustments to the model are required by Hamas to maintain the pressure on Netanyahu and his cabinet.

On Oct. 18 a Hamas spokesman announced the group was willing to release women and children.




This photo provided by Ichilov hospital shows Yocheved Lifshitz, one of the two women released from Hamas captivity late Monday, Oct. 23, 2023, being wheeled in a wheelchair down the hall at the hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Jenny Yerushalmy/Ichilov hospital via AP)

Two days later, two American hostages, Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie, were suddenly released, with US President Joe Biden publicly thanking “the government of Qatar and the government of Israel for their partnership in this work.”

Three days after that, two more elderly Israeli hostages were released. One, 85-year-old grandmother Yocheved Lifshitz, was a peace activist who, according to her grandson, had worked for years helping Palestinians in Gaza to receive medical treatment.

In footage of the women’s release, filmed and released by the media-savvy Hamas, Lifshitz was seen shaking hands with one of her armed captors and wishing him “Shalom” — peace.

On Monday Hamas released a video featuring three kidnapped Israeli women, one of whom accused Netanyahu of having failed to protect Israel on Oct. 7, and then condemned Israel’s military incursions into Gaza.

 

 

“We are innocent citizens,” she told her prime minister. “You want to kill us all. You want to kill us all using the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).”

Each such episode bolsters hope for those who remain in captivity, appears to show Hamas in a humanitarian light, and makes any large-scale military incursion into Gaza by Israeli forces appear reckless.

What does Hamas want? Last week a senior official was quoted on NBC News saying that it would be willing to release all civilian hostages “in one hour” if Israel halted all attacks on the Gaza Strip and released all Palestinians detained by Israel.

This is, of course, exactly what many of Israel’s own citizens are now calling for.




Israeli armored personnel carriers and tanks move towards the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on   Nov.1, 2023. (AP)

But Denselow says the situation in Gaza — and the fate of the hostages held there — remains on a knife edge.

“Reports suggest that the release of a handful of hostages may have played a role in delaying a ground offensive,” he said.

“Yet history shows that while in more stable conflicts hostage negotiation and return can occur, in more fast-moving and intensive conflicts hostages are often tragically unable to escape the wider maelstrom of violence.

“If, by some diplomatic miracle, hostages are safely released, there is still the question of what happens next, and whether violence could indeed escalate.”

 


Eight dead in Sudan paramilitary attack on shelter: doctor

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Eight dead in Sudan paramilitary attack on shelter: doctor

  • Since losing control of the capital Khartoum to the army in March, the RSF has stepped up attacks on El-Fasher and its surrounding displacement camps

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed eight civilians in an attack on a bunker sheltering dozens in the besieged western city of El-Fasher, a doctor said Thursday.
Nearly all of Darfur, the vast western region of Sudan, remains under RSF control, with communications and media access cut off since the RSF’s war with the army began in April 2023.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands, triggered the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, and devastated the northeast African country.
“The RSF bombed a shelter where citizens had taken refuge using a drone, late on Tuesday night,” the doctor told AFP from El-Fasher Teaching Hospital, one of the city’s last functioning health facilities.
They spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety, as health workers have been repeatedly targeted, using a satellite Internet connection to circumvent the communications blackout.
North Darfur state’s capital, El-Fasher, is the only major city in Sudan’s vast Darfur region still outside RSF control, despite a siege that began in May last year.
Since losing control of the capital Khartoum to the army in March, the RSF has stepped up attacks on El-Fasher and its surrounding displacement camps — where famine has already been declared — in an attempt to consolidate its hold on Darfur.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the plight of the city’s trapped civilians, who shelter from shelling in makeshift bunkers dug in courtyards and in front of houses.
The bunker bombed on Tuesday had been “sheltering dozens of people,” an eyewitness told AFP.
The city’s resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating frontline aid across the country, said El-Fasher was rocked by RSF artillery throughout Wednesday.
El-Fasher’s estimated one million people survive with barely any access to food, water or health care, with critical infrastructure decimated by a lack of maintenance and fuel shortages.
The United Nations said this week that nearly 40 percent of children under five in El-Fasher were suffering from acute malnutrition, including 11 percent with severe acute malnutrition.
Aid sources say an official famine declaration is impossible given the lack of access to data, but mass starvation has all but gripped the city.
Since the war began, the UN estimates 780,000 people have been displaced from El-Fasher and its surrounding displacement camps, including half a million in April and May following a series of brutal RSF attacks.
Of the 10 million people currently internally displaced in Sudan — the world’s largest displacement crisis — nearly 20 percent are in North Darfur.
 


Rights defenders denounce US sanctions on UN expert

Updated 10 min 32 sec ago
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Rights defenders denounce US sanctions on UN expert

  • Francesca Albanese accused companies of supporting settlements, Israeli war actions

GENEVA: Human rights defenders rallied on Thursday to support the top UN expert on Palestinian rights, after the US imposed sanctions on her over what it said was unfair criticism of Israel.

Italian lawyer Francesca Albanese serves as special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, one of dozens of experts appointed by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council to report on specific global issues.
She has long criticized Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, and this month published a report accusing over 60 companies, including some US firms, of supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank and military actions in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday Albanese would be added to the US sanctions list for work that had prompted what he described as illegitimate prosecutions of Israelis at the International Criminal Court.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk urged Washington to reverse course.
“Even in the face of fierce disagreement, UN Member States should engage substantively and constructively, rather than resort to punitive measures,” he said.
Juerg Lauber, the Swiss permanent representative to the UN who now holds the rotating presidency of the Human Rights Council, said he regretted the sanctions, and called on states to “refrain from any acts of intimidation or reprisal” against the body’s experts.
Mariana Katzarova, who serves as the special rapporteur for human rights in Russia, said her concern was that other countries would follow the US lead.
“This is totally unacceptable and opens the gates for any other government to do the same,” she said. “It is an attack on UN system as a whole. Member states must stand up and denounce this.”
Russia has rejected Katzarova’s mandate and refused to let her enter the country, but it has so far stopped short of publicly adding her to a sanctions list.
Washington has already imposed sanctions against officials at the International Criminal Court, which has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister for suspected war crimes in Gaza. Another court, the International Court of Justice, is hearing a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israel of genocide.
Israel denies that its forces have carried out war crimes or genocide against Palestinians in the war in Gaza, which was precipitated by an attack by Hamas-led fighters in October 2023.
“The United States is working to dismantle the norms and institutions on which survivors of grave abuses rely,” said Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch.
The group’s former head, Kenneth Roth, called the US sanctions an attempt “to deter prosecution of Israeli war crimes and genocide in Gaza.”
The US, once one of the most active members of the Human Rights Council, has disengaged from it under President Donald Trump, alleging an anti-Israel bias.


Sara Netanyahu: the ever-present wife of Israel’s prime minister

Updated 12 min 41 sec ago
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Sara Netanyahu: the ever-present wife of Israel’s prime minister

  • Sara Netanyahu has long made headlines, notably for her alleged involvement in the political decisions of her husband
  • She has been questioned in connection with her husband’s ongoing graft trial and was the subject of corruption, fraud and breach of trust investigations

JERUSALEM: Whether dining opposite US President Donald Trump or accompanying her husband on an official Pentagon visit, Sara Netanyahu’s front-row role in Washington this week has sparked fresh questions over her place in Israeli politics.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s third wife and the mother of two of his children, Sara Netanyahu has long made headlines, notably for her alleged involvement in the political decisions of her husband.
“My wife and I...” is a phrase often used by the Israeli premier in his official statements, helping to cement Sara’s position at the forefront of public life.
This week, as the prime minister visited Washington for a series of high-level meetings in which he discussed a potential Gaza ceasefire deal with the US president, his wife was noticeably present.
On Tuesday, she was photographed sitting opposite Trump at an official dinner following a meeting between the two leaders.
Two days later, she appeared next to her husband, as well as US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, as they arrived for meetings at the Pentagon.
But speculation had swirled even before the Netanyahus’ departure for Washington.
On the eve of the trip, the prime minister’s office announced the resignation of his spokesman Omer Dostri.
A few hours later, following media reports claiming that his wife had been involved in the decision, another statement was issued denying she had any role.
Sara Netanyahu has been the subject of several investigations, including for corruption, fraud and breach of trust, and has also been questioned in connection with her husband’s ongoing graft trial.
Married to Benjamin Netanyahu since 1991, the 66-year-old is the target of frequent media attacks which are regularly denounced by her husband.
She has been caricatured in satirical programs for her fashion choices or her profession as a child psychologist, which she has often appeared to boast about.
But above all, she has been targeted for her alleged interference in state affairs.
‘Real prime minister’
In a video released in December 2024, Netanyahu denied that his wife was involved in his cabinet appointments or that she was privy to state secrets.
It followed an investigation into Sara Netanyahu aired by Israel’s Channnel 12 which the prime minister slammed as a “witch hunt.”
In 2021, a former senior official said he had seen a contract signed by the Netanyahus stipulating that Sara had a say in the appointment of Israeli security chiefs.
To that claim, the prime minister’s office responded with a brief statement denouncing “a complete lie.” The official lost a libel suit brought against him by the Netanyahus’ lawyer.
And when the prime minister appointed David Zini as the new head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service in May, Israeli journalists once again pointed to the possible influence of Sara Netanyahu, who is thought to be close to Zini’s entourage.
Almost two years since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, Sara Netanyahu seems to have established herself as more indispensable than ever, with some even attributing her with increasing influence on strategic issues.
In May, when Sara Netanyahu corrected the number of living Gaza hostages given by her husband during a recorded meeting with the captives’ families, speculation swirled that she had access to classified information.
Journalist and Netanyahu biographer Ben Caspit went as far as to describe Sara Netanyahu as the “real prime minister.”
“It has become public knowledge. It is an integral part of our lives... we are normalizing the fact that someone has dismantled the leadership of the state in favor of chaotic, family-based management,” Caspit said in an opinion piece published on the website of the Maariv newspaper.
In an interview with US news outlet Fox News on Wednesday, Netanyahu described his wife as a “wonderful partner” and praised her help over the years.


KSrelief extends fire aid to 600 families in Syrian villages, distributes winter kits in Pakistan

The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center delivers critical assistance to fire-affected communities in Syria.(KSRelief)
Updated 10 July 2025
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KSrelief extends fire aid to 600 families in Syrian villages, distributes winter kits in Pakistan

  • Relief workers distributed emergency supplies to 600 families impacted by fires across rural Latakia province in Syria, reaching 13 villages

DAMASCUS: The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center has expanded its emergency response operations, delivering critical assistance to fire-affected communities in Syria while simultaneously addressing winter shelter needs for displaced populations in Pakistan.
Relief workers distributed emergency supplies to 600 families impacted by fires across rural Latakia province in Syria, reaching 13 villages: Al-Midan, Aysha Banar, Shaqraa, Beit Fares, Beit Awan, Al-Husainiya, Al-Ramadiya, Al-Rawda, Qastal Maaf, Al-Tamima, Beit Sheikh Wali, Beit Al-Wadi and Beit Hussein.
In parallel operations, the center provided 2,012 emergency shelter kits to vulnerable populations across Kashmir region in Pakistan, reaching 14,921 people through its 2025 shelter materials and winter supplies distribution program.
The operations form part of Saudi Arabia’s broader humanitarian framework, delivered through the center’s established networks, to support affected communities globally.


Libya’s unity government, Turkiye strengthen military cooperation with agreement in Ankara

Updated 10 July 2025
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Libya’s unity government, Turkiye strengthen military cooperation with agreement in Ankara

  • Deal outlines cooperation in military fields to enhance Libyan army’s readiness, professionalism
  • Libya’s undersecretary of the Ministry of Defense met Yasar Guler, Turkey’s minister of national defense

LONDON: Libya and Turkiye signed an agreement on Thursday to enhance the Libyan army’s military capabilities through advanced training and logistical support.

The National Unity Government based in Tripoli said that Abdulsalam Al-Zoubi, undersecretary of the Ministry of Defense, visited Ankara to work on strengthening military cooperation between Libya and Turkiye. During his visit, he met Yasar Guler, the Turkish minister of national defense, as well as the undersecretary of the ministry of defense.

The agreement outlines cooperation in military fields to enhance the Libyan army’s readiness and professionalism. Al-Zoubi said that the cooperation is part of Tripoli’s plan to develop the Libyan army, praising the strategic relationship with Ankara. He said cooperation with Turkiye is a key priority for the Ministry of Defense’s institutional development program.

Turkiye has reaffirmed its commitment to support Tripoli’s defense capabilities, highlighting its strategic partnership, the statement added.