Israelis’ joy seeing hostages freed is tempered by a deep bitterness — and rage

Source: The Jewish News of Northern California

By Yossi Klein Halevi | January 23, 2025
Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and author of the 2018 book “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.”

For a moment at least, as the first hostages were released, Israelis once again acted like a united people. Catching a televised glimpse on Sunday as the three young women were transferred to Red Cross officials while surrounded by hundreds of terrorists, a whole nation seemed to weep with relief.

The joy over their release was mixed with rage against a terrorist regime that holds children and old people hostage while denying their families proof that their loved ones are still alive. When a masked terrorist laid his hand on one of the young women during the handover, I wanted to throttle him. I imagine other Israeli parents felt the same.

But there the emotional unanimity ended. The hostages — Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher — returned to a bitter and divided nation. Many Israelis blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for repeatedly sabotaging a hostage deal, yielding to pressure from his far-right coalition partners who opposed a cease-fire. The same deal now being implemented, several coalition members confirmed, could have been reached months ago and saved the lives of hostages who have died or been murdered in captivity. This time, pressure from Donald Trump as he prepared to take office apparently persuaded Netanyahu to relent.

Far-right leader Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to topple the government if it extends the cease-fire beyond the first phase of the hostage release. Netanyahu reportedly has assured Smotrich that he will resume the war after the first phase, which ends in less than six weeks. That would almost certainly doom any chance of further hostage deals.

Israelis have embraced the hostages as virtual family members. On the facade of a nursing home in my Jerusalem neighborhood is a giant poster with the faces of elderly hostages and the words, “Everyone’s grandparents.” The streets are covered with photos of hostages, urging passersby to “look them in their eyes.”

In recent days a new poster has appeared, featuring faces of hostages not included in the current exchange. “Don’t leave us behind,” they plead. The implicit warning is that the government intends to do just that.

The bitterness on the right is no less acute. In one protest against the deal, parents of fallen soldiers bore coffins and asked whether their sons had died in vain. The government promised victory over terrorism. Instead, in their eyes, it capitulated to Hamas.

Likewise, some Israelis who lost family members in terror attacks across the decades feel violated. One man said the state betrayed him after he was informed that his brother’s murderer was set to be released as part of the cease-fire deal.

Sherri Mandell, whose 13-year-old son, Koby, together with another boy, was stoned to death by Palestinians in 2001, wrote in the Times of Israel: “I’m glad that my son’s murderers were not found. I would be terrified that I, too, would receive a phone call telling me they were letting out Koby and Yosef’s killers.”

Israelis who support the deal are also horrified by the mass release of terrorists. Esther Abramowitz, who lost several friends in a terrorist bombing of a student cafeteria at Hebrew University two decades ago, wrote to a friend after learning that the terrorist who placed the bomb was set to be released: “I can’t breathe.” But, she added, “We will hold each other up and the hostages will come home.”

The scenes of Hamas victory parades in the ravaged streets of Gaza only intensify our angst. The war was not supposed to end this way, with Hamas resuming control of Gaza and its leaders threatening more terrorism to come.

When Israel went to war after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the intention was to destroy the Hamas regime. The worst atrocity against Jews in a hundred years of Arab-Jewish conflict had convinced Israelis that we could no longer live next door to terrorist enclaves committed to our country’s destruction.

The war against Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah had two strategic goals. The first was to break the siege on our borders. The second was to restore our shattered military deterrence.

As the hostage deal painfully attests, those goals have been only partly achieved. Hamas and Hezbollah are decimated but hardly destroyed. The Assad regime in Syria, the main conduit of Iranian weapons to its terror proxies, has been replaced by an anti-Iranian regime, but its jihadist leaders could also turn their weapons against Israel.

In the coming weeks, Israel’s streets may erupt with conflicting expressions of rage — against the release of terrorists and against the government wavering on further hostage deals. As we grapple with unbearable dilemmas, many here will discover that the divide within Israeli society also runs within themselves.