Last Thursday a temporary pause or ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Hamas was extended for another 24 hours. But even as that happened it seemed Hamas was eager to resume hostilities. Two Hamas militants drove to a bus station in Jerusalem and opened fire on a group of civilians, killing three people. The shooters, who were brothers with a long history of Hamas affiliation, were both killed at the scene. But Hamas claimed credit for the attack and openly celebrated it.
Hamas also launched rockets at Israel that day and by Friday Israel announced the ceasefire was over and IDF attacks in Gaza would resume.
Hamas violated the operational pause, and in addition, fired toward Israeli territory.
The IDF has resumed combat against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/gVRpctD79R
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 1, 2023
But it turns out the attack at the bus stop and the rocket attacks weren’t the only reason the ceasefire collapsed. There was something going on behind the scenes as well. The basic agreement underlying the ceasefire was that Israel would allow humanitarian aid into Gaza so long as Hamas continued to release Israeli hostages, specifically women and children. And for a few days Hamas was doing that but then they tried changing the deal with no clear explanation.
Hamas still holds 137 Israeli hostages, among them 17 women. In talks last week, Hamas refused to send a list of the next batch of women—apparently around 10—to be released, but suddenly offered to start discussing the release of elderly men instead.
The Israelis were stunned. “Our deal was [releasing] the women,” one senior Biden administration official told me about the collapse and the Israelis’ thinking. “We’ll take the men, sure, but they’re not going to jump the line.” Still, Hamas refused to release the remaining women in its custody, the ceasefire collapsed, and we’re now back to watching the resumption and expansion of Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
This raises an obvious question: Why didn’t Hamas just stick to the deal? All they had to do was keep releasing the women hostages and the ceasefire would have continued. At this point the leading guess inside the Israeli government, and it’s speculation the White House agrees is plausible, is that Hamas isn’t releasing the remaining women because they don’t want them to talk.
Speaking on Monday during his daily briefing, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that “it seems one of the reasons they don’t want to turn women over that they’ve been holding hostage, and the reason this pause fell apart, is because they don’t want these women to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody.”
Three senior administration officials confirmed to me that this is the going hypothesis in the White House: that the Israeli women still in Hamas custody are young, in their 20s and 30s, and Hamas members have raped and sexually assaulted them. “Everyone assumes it seems to be the case,” said one of the sources. “It’s quite ugly.” Said a second senior administration official, “That is our going assumption, that at least one reason they’re unwilling to let these young ladies go is that they have been sexually assaulting them.”
Hamas can justify the murder of Israeli civilians but rape is prohibited by their religion. This is why they are pushing back so hard on the allegations of rape that have appeared in the media this week.
Maybe the statements in this story are intended as a pointed message, a kind of dare designed to force Hamas to release the remaining women hostages to prove they haven’t been sexually abused. For the sake of the women involved I hope that’s the case but at this point there’s no real reason to give Hamas the benefit of the doubt.
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