Rescuing Hostages Is Good, Actually

National Review Online

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

 

The video of music-festival attendee Noa Argamani screaming for help as she was being dragged away on a motorbike to captivity in Gaza was one of the enduring images of October 7. It epitomized both the horrific nature of the assault and the vulnerability of the victims. Her rescue in a daring raid by Israeli special forces over the weekend that also saved three other hostages provided a much-needed morale boost for Israelis, who for eight months have been fighting a costly war against Hamas with most of the world against them.

 

In a morally sane world, the rescue of civilian hostages should have been widely celebrated as a heroic operation. Sadly, when it comes to the world’s attitude toward Jews, we are not living in such a world.

 

The media were quick to run with Hamas figures claiming hundreds of deaths in a “massacre” of civilians, and all the usual suspects jumped in to turn Israel, once again, into the bad party.

 

“More than 200 Palestinians killed in Israeli hostage raid in Gaza,” screamed the headline that led the Washington Post homepage. United Nations emergency-relief coordinator Martin Griffiths said the operation was indicative of “the seismic trauma that civilians in Gaza continue to suffer.”

 

“How many innocent Palestinians killed is acceptable to rescue Israeli hostages?” fumed MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin.

 

Others argued that Israel could have peacefully had all the hostages freed months ago had they only accepted a cease-fire proposal.

 

To point out the fact that Hamas has for months rejected proposals to free all of the hostages gives this argument too much credit. Because debating the particulars of given proposals distracts from the fact that there would be no need for a hostage rescue mission or for cease-fire negotiations over hostages had Hamas not invaded Israel while a cease-fire was in effect and taken hundreds of hostages.

 

As for the idea of “innocent” Palestinians being “massacred” in Israel’s operation — that, too, is another distortion of the reality of what took place.

 

It turns out that with the help of armed guards, the four hostages were held in civilian apartment complexes in Nuseirat, which was established as a refugee camp after the creation of Israel and has a large U.N. presence. The IDF confirmed that three hostages — Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv — were held in the home of Abdallah Aljamal. Until he was killed in the rescue mission, Aljamal was working as a journalist at the Palestine Chronicle, which is run by an ex–Al Jazeera official and actually part of an organization that is an IRS-established 501(c)(3). He also wrote an opinion piece as an outside contributor to Al Jazeera. Noa Argamani, meanwhile, testified that she was held captive by a wealthy family who forced her to clean for them.

 

In the high-risk mission, which resulted in one IDF casualty, Israeli operatives went into Nuseirat, entered the buildings to extract the hostages, and fled in vehicles that raced to a rescue helicopter — at one harrowing moment, one vehicle carrying three of the hostages broke down, and they had to be transferred to another vehicle under heavy fire. As terrorists tried to kill the fleeing hostages and their rescuers, Israelis responded with the help of air power.

 

The decision to take the hostages in the first place, to hold them in civilian homes in a densely populated civilian area, and to shoot at the hostages when they were trying to escape all place the responsibility on Hamas for any deaths — whatever the actual number happens to be.

 

We are overjoyed at the release of the four hostages, but do not forget that 120 hostages — including five Americans still believed to be living — remain in Gaza. Israel should be cheered for doing whatever it takes to bring them home.