A member of Israel’s war cabinet has said the country will launch its threatened ground offensive against Rafah, the last place of relative safety in Gaza, if Hamas does not release its remaining Israeli hostages by the beginning of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in just under three weeks.
“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know – if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area,” Benny Gantz, a retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff, told a conference of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday.
As Israeli forces have expanded ground operations steadily southwards in their war against Hamas over the past four months, Rafah – situated on the border with Egypt, and before the conflict home to about 280,000 people – has become the last refuge for more than half of the strip’s population of 2.3 million.
human lives aren’t “bargaining points”, and if you have no intention to return them then you aren’t even using them as that, as fucked as it is
edit: this is a perfect example why lemmy won’t really take off anytime soon. ya’ll think having a position of “taking hostages is bad” is somehow the wrong opinion. good way to have legitimate discussion guys…
I’ll just note that Israel is using the million and a half innocent Gazans currently in Rafah as a bargaining point.