Honest question: what was Hamas' long-game with respect to kidnapping Israelis? Did they think Israel would just negotiate rather than retaliate?
It just seems crazy to me given the power imbalance. A cynical part of me suspects that things are playing out exactly as some evil strategists hoped they would, which, given all the children dying, is super-depressing.
Well if you target Hamas but bomb an innocent family of five killing three, you probably just made two new Hamas members. Especially if the parents didn’t survive, they know exactly whos gonna ‘take care’ of those orphaned kids.
Hostages are variables that Hamas controls and Israel must respect. They can be used as chips to barter with, shields to hide behind, and tools to shame the Israelis in the court of public opinion.
All fair points. They hardly needed to shame Israel in the court of public opinion, though. The hard-right faction who control their government have proven quite adept at shaming themselves with no outside help.
NB: I said Israel the country. Not Israelis the people.
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