It was a haunting image, and it has changed the country. Israelis have been through hostage release rituals staged by Hamas in Gaza before, but they weren’t prepared for what they saw last Saturday. It’s hard to prepare for that.
Three men – Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami, and Or Levy – were paraded on the platform, supported by Hamas terrorists when they were unsteady on their feet. All three looked frail and emaciated, but it was the haunted look of the skeletal Sharabi that continues to play on our minds and fears.
This is what he looked like even before the devastating news of his losses – before he learned that his wife and two daughters had been murdered during the Hamas invasion and mega-atrocity on October 7, 2023, and that his brother, Yossi, had been killed in captivity.
In one final act of psychological abuse, Hamas just before the handover to the International Red Cross Committee officials led him to believe he was about to be reunited with his family.
Sharabi, 52, and Ben Ami, 56, were abducted from their homes on Kibbutz Be’eri. British-born Lianne Sharabi and daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, were killed in their safe room.
Ben Ami’s wife, Raz, was among the 251 kidnapped and was released in a deal last year. Or Levy, 34, and his wife, Eynav, had left their toddler with Eynav’s parents to have some fun at the Supernova music festival.
Eynav was among the 20 murdered in a roadside shelter while seeking safety. Or was taken hostage by the terrorists, along with among others, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was murdered in captivity. Almog, Or’s now three-year-old son, reportedly said to his father on their reunion: “Daddy, it took you a long time to come back.”
The shocking appearance of the three Israeli men has been compared to the images of skeletal concentration camp survivors when they were released. It’s an obvious comparison. On October 7, 2023, a total of 1,200 people were murdered and thousands wounded as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorists swept through southern Israeli communities, killing, raping, torturing, looting, and setting homes on fire. The ISIS-style attack was the most heinous act of savage barbarity aimed at the Jews since the Holocaust.
I don’t believe anything should be compared to the Holocaust, unique in its scope, scale, and evil, but October 7 has earned its own date of infamy in history. Like 9/11, the date is scorched on our psyche, scars that might heal but will never disappear.
At the release of the three men, a major Hamas deception was on display for those who wanted to see: The contrast between the well-fed, well-armed terrorists and their hostage victims was striking. There clearly has been no lack of food reaching Hamas; there has been deliberate starvation of its captives.
There will always be those who prefer to blame the victim – as long as they are Jewish victims. In a particularly outrageous Facebook comment last week, one “useful idiot” tried to convince me that “realistically, those tunnels kept the hostages safe from Israel’s Hannibal Directive. Israel will gleefully kill its own citizens for its own goals…”
The presence of Red Cross officials on the stage for the handover further accentuated their absence during the nearly 16 months of captivity when they failed to visit any hostages or even deliver essential medicines.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA coverage of the theater of terror included some distortions so abominable that Israeli President Isaac Herzog took certain networks to task. Media monitor NGO HonestReporting singled out three outlets that particularly disgraced themselves: the BBC, CNN, and The Guardian.
The BBC declared “concerns over appearance of hostages on both sides,” equating the innocent civilians kidnapped and tortured by Hamas – a terrorist organization banned in the UK – with the prisoners released from Israeli jails, where they had been serving sentences for terror-related offenses, including murder.
“CNN’s coverage of the hostage handover also led with grotesque attempts to equate hostages and prisoners, with its lead story claiming that ‘many of [the prisoners] appeared emaciated and in poor health,’” HonestReporting pointed out.
Meanwhile, in a headline that HonestReporting said amounted to “journalistic depravity,” The Guardian wrote: “Fifth ceasefire exchange sees gaunt captives emerge from Gaza and Israel.”
On Monday evening, Hamas declared it would not be releasing the next three hostages on Saturday as called for in the deal. The reason is not clear – Hamas issued its usual slogans calling for more humanitarian aid, but this is not about bringing in more than the hundreds of trucks of aid already entering the Gaza Strip daily.
If anything, the insistence of the Biden administration and the international community on ever larger amounts of “humanitarian aid” fueled Hamas and prolonged the war. Look Eli Sharabi in the eyes and try to pretend that the food reached the Israeli hostages.
It’s possible that Hamas had not realized the depths of the outrage at the obvious abuse of the male hostages and wants more time to improve the look of the next men before they are released.
Sharabi, Ben Ami, and Levy all told relatives of a starvation diet and of being shackled in a small room in a terror tunnel, unable to move, without fresh air or daylight. However, if the terrorists try to force food on hostages suffering from prolonged starvation, as we know from the experience of concentration camp victims, the results can be fatal.
It is more likely that Hamas is trying to demonstrate it is still in control after Israel pulled out from the Netzarim Corridor dividing north and south Gaza and allowed Gazans to return to the northern area. The IDF withdrawal from Netzarim meant Israel lost both leverage and a security mechanism, but it was part of the agreement reached to facilitate the hostage release.
As soon as Palestinians began to return to the northern Gaza Strip, groups approached the off-limit perimeter area close to the border fence, just a few hundred meters from the kibbutzim that were attacked on October 7. IDF soldiers opened fire on those who came too close and came under international knee-jerk condemnation.
Hamas is evil but not stupid. It is also possible that by threatening to stop the hostage release, it is aiming to deliberately foster the rifts in Israeli society, a strategy the terrorist organization and its Iranian backers have long used to weaken the country.
After Israelis saw the images of the three starved men, Hamas is hoping to raise the price for future releases. Israel has to balance the risks to the lives of the remaining hostages and the future threats to millions of Israelis with the mass release of terrorists. Of the 76 hostages in Gaza, 35 are believed to be alive – for now.
The oldest, Shlomo Mantzur, an Iraqi-born kibbutznik who was 85 when he was abducted, was declared to be dead this week. There are also grave fears concerning Shiri Bibas and her two ginger-haired toddler sons, the youngest hostages. This too is a standard part of Hamas’s psychological warfare.
'All hell is going to break out'
On Monday evening, President Donald Trump called for all the hostages to be released this Saturday, threatening characteristically “or all hell is going to break out.” He added that if this did not happen, he would advise canceling the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, although he emphasized that ultimately “it was Israel’s decision.”
The US could bring pressure on Hamas backers Qatar and Turkey and also press harder on Egypt and Jordan to accept Palestinians from Gaza while the area is being rehabilitated and turned into a Mediterranean resort with decent living conditions, in accordance with the plan Trump announced last week.
At the time of this writing, there is no way to know what will happen, but as long as Hamas stays in place and in power, no one is safe: not Palestinians, not Israelis, and not the Western world, whatever its media sympathies may be.
The writing is on the wall – or at least on the banners on the stage where jihadist Hamas held its ritual handover: “We’re the [al-Aqsa] Flood. We’re the day after,” the slogans declared.
No contrition. No suggestion of a better future. Just threats of more murder and terror. Without a concerted international effort to back Israel, the “day after” will be another October 7. And the day after that will be 9/11 all over again.