Why don't Hamas just release all the hostages?

Even if true, how is that any different from what is happening now?

Don't you want the war to end? Delaying the inevitable capitulation of Hamas is just leading to more civilians getting killed.

Everyone knows that once the last hostage is handed over, Israel will occupy Gaza and make life hell for any Palestinian left there.

What percentage of the Israeli population are Arabs?
How many members of the Israeli parliament are Arabs?
What percentage of the Gazan population are Jewish (excluding those held against their will.)?
How many members of the hamas government in Gaza are Jewish?
What do you understand by the phrase ethnic cleansing.

Personally I think Hamas should have admitted defeat and released all the hostages ages ago.

They committed a massacre on October 7th 2023 hoping to achieve a wave of violence against the Israeli people supported by other, stronger nations like Iran helping them to do the job. It hasn't worked out well for them and instead it is their civilians who are getting killed and everything destroyed.

I know there are new talks going on now between Hamas and Israel. I really hope that an agreement can be reached to release hostages, allow humanitarian aid back into Gaza immediately and for Hamas to leave Gaza.

Hamas won’t stop until Israel is eradicated. It’s part of their founding manifesto. Unfortunately they aren’t clever enough to realise that they will never succeed. Israel is strongly armed, technologically advanced, and unwilling to be wiped out.

@Aikko you describe the atrocities against Jewish people .

Does that mean because unconscionable,terrible things happened that it is accepted that further terrible ,unconscionable things are perpetrated with the world looking on and providing various kinds of support to those continuing these actions .

One has to act crazy to deal with crazy.
Petting and powdering narcissists like Hamas just makes their hatred more intense.
Hamas and those complicit to Hamas love taking a beating.
Probably best not to look through this whole situation through a normal "poor them" lens.
It's that perfectly normal psychological lens that Hamas and those complicit with Hamas are using to take the piss out of support for Gazans (from the West. Non Western support for Gazans usually is far more direct in acknowledging that this cannot be seperated from anti Israel as a nation or notion/support for anti Israeli terrorism).
In fact all sites that I visit outside of Mumsnet, people are far less shy about stating their obvious anti Israel as a nation concept whilst.standing ten toes down for Gazans and only taking "history" back to 1947 because it's far harder to fool those who want to be fooled that Arabs in the Levant were out there walking the Jewish people through nature before they suddenly decided to turn around and "steal" a nation for themselves, for absolutely no reason, justification or historical right at all.

This sadly!

The poster said Israel was ethnically cleansing Arabs from the region. This is simply untrue as I pointed out.

Read Aikki’s post below for a good description of how Jews have been ethnically cleansed from their ancient homeland.

This really isn’t the simple goodie/ baddie story you want it to be.

This. The Jewish people have been cleared out of the region. That's ethnic cleansing. They have Israel left.
I watched the Pope's inauguration this morning and the very first reading in Spanish was talking of the people of Israel. Long before Arabs came and invaded the lands there were Jewish people, Egyptians etc, been there thousands of years. Now moved from the area into Israel and few left in other lands.

The first phase had finished so Israel didn’t turn their back on any deal that was still in place. They just refused to move onto a second phase unless Hamas committed to putting down their arms.

Only because Hamas have also been refusing to put down their arms.

Very short term thinking if Israel agreed to a permanent ceasefire while Hamas can just attack them again. Which they have vowed to do.

Indeed, the Jewish people were ethnically cleansed.

In 1945, 856,000 Jewish people lived in the middle east, north Africa and the Gulf region. Only about 4,500 remain, almost all of them in Morocco and Tunisia. Jewish people have lived continuously in the middle east and north Africa for over 2,600 years, yet in just a few decades they almost totally disappeared. Thousands were expelled or fled their home countries in fear. Around 850,000 were forced out or felt they had to leave following the United Nations decision to partition Palestine in 1947. Age-old communities, with roots dating back millennia, were gone. It was the largest exodus of non-Muslims from the middle east until the movement of Christians from Iraq after 2003.

Between 1948 and 1972, pogroms and violent attacks were perpetrated in every Arab country against its Jewish residents. The ethnic cleansing of thousands of Jewish people from the Arab world in the mid-20th century was described by journalist Tom Gross as “systematic, absolute and unprovoked.” For example, there were 38,000 Jews living in western Libya before 1945. Now there are none. Few of the 74 synagogues in Libya are recognisable, and a highway runs through Tripoli’s Jewish cemetery. In Algeria, 50 years ago, there were 140,000 Jewish people. Now there are none. In Iraq, there were 135,000, and in Egypt, 75,000. Almost all are gone from those countries too. Some 259,000 left Morocco, 55,000 left Yemen, 20,000 left Lebanon, 180,000 left Syria and 25,000 left Iran. What happened amounted to the near total extinction of an ancient civilisation.

And for those who have forgotten, all if not most of the hostages would have been released now if Israel had not turned back on the deal both sides had signed and refused to move on to the second phase.

Hamas should never have taken the hostages in the first place, but its incorrect thar they have not offered to release them to end the war. As one of the hostages mother said yesterday 'Netanyahu is the angel of death'. He has abandoned the hostages because war suits his political survival.

Yes they should just release all hostages, I’m not sure why Hamas don’t.

I'm very clearly not, either in this post or my subsequent reply. The clues are terms like "disproportionate harm", "acting inappropriately" or (sub post) "Israel are doing a great job making themselves look bad and isolating the country from Europe and the US".

Are you saying the Israeli government have no agency? Its the classic narcissist approach of don't blame me, They made me do it! When carrying out war crimes and mass starvation.

Israel ARE ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza. Netanyahu has openly spoke multiple times about his plans to cleanse them further. Someone would really have to have their head in the sand to not see that.

Since the hostages were held in different places and by other terrorist groups and by ordinary citizens where would they get they from?

Even hamas have said at times they didn't know where they all were? They pretended some were dead when they weren't.

If only as easy as in the films, go in, rescue them, and out!

They have offered to release all the hostages multiple times for a full ceasefire but Israel have repeatedly said no.

This.

Hamas love bargaining chips. It feels like they are loving the increase in support after pushing Israel to the edge.

They don't love their children or their people, they just hate Jewish people, so don't want this to end. They also love money, billions of it, and power.

Palestine is a vipers nest.

Tel Aviv is right to ensure it that attacks originating from Palestine or elsewhere, are no longer permitted to represent a threat to Israel’s security.

Before you try, I do not condone the loss of innocent civilian life.

@MyNameIsX quite agree ! How very dare they !
Oh ,hang on a minute ,how very dare the rest of the world (unwashed or not)support and sell arms to countries decimating and starving civilian populations .
Oh ,hang on another minute - it's ok because they've washed and are driven by financial gain .

You are one of the very few people thinking that I imagine.

Ridiculous to suggest that Israel are somehow to blame for their innocent civilians being taken and held as hostages. Of course they couldn't have just "gone and got them" 2 days later - they were and are being held in captivity in underground tunnels in unknown locations.