Thursday, we shared that the Biden administration essentially let Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu know the U.S. is abandoning our ally in its fight against Hamas:
Read: Biden Essentially Abandons Israel in Phone Call With Prime Minister Netanyahu
But on Friday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres took to X/Twitter to call for the unconditional release of all hostages currently held "by Hamas and other groups."
Israel has offered to exchange Hamas prisoners for Israeli hostages at ratios of up to 800 Hamas prisoners for 40 Israeli citizens. The UN Human Rights Council, meanwhile, has voted to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and urging other nations not to provide arms to Israel.
Hamas, of course, does not agree with the Secretary-General's sentiments. A senior official of Hamas has responded, also on X/Twitter, with a series of oddly-capitalized demands that Israel is unlikely to agree to.
Hamas still holds as many as 130 hostages six months after the October 7th, 2023, terror attacks that Hamas launched from Gaza into Israel. It is not known how many of those hostages are still alive.
Perhaps Israel’s biggest failure concerns the hostages. The release of 112 hostages and rescue of several more left 130 in Hamas’s hands. The Israeli government has announced that 34 of those are presumed dead, and it’s possible that far more have perished. Hamas claims that Israeli military operations have killed over 70 hostages. The same tunnels that hide Hamas’s fighters and leaders also hide its captives, and it is hard to target Gaza as extensively as Israel has done without inadvertently killing some of them. There is no simple answer to the hostage conundrum.
It is important to note that most of the actions the Israel Defense Forces have carried out against Hamas have been in urban terrain, which is the most difficult terrain for military operations. Military operations in urban terrain (MOUT) present the highest risk of fratricide and injuries/deaths among noncombatants, as well as being very advantageous to defenders over attackers. This has, to say the least, greatly complicated the task of liberating these hostages by force.
See Related: WATCH: The Moment Dr. Phil Became All of Us While Demolishing a Pro-Hamas Lunatic
Fetterman Does Not Budge in His Support for Israel After Biden Issues Gaza Ultimatum in Phone Call
If a ceasefire was implemented, it's widely assumed that Hamas would use the breathing space to re-arm and re-equip.
As of this writing, there has not been any official reply from Israel to the Secretary-General's comments.