Could Israel have got the hostages back by negotiation rather than war ?

I think so wedded to the cause that they're not scared of dying themselves or scared of any more of their people dying.
I think most on these boards ( including myself ) are so far from understanding this mindset that it does not compute. So they see Israel as the evil genocidal oppressors and don't see how Hamas can have been the architects of their own downfall.

Everyday I can't believe Hamas still haven't surrendered. I can understand ( while not agree with ) Israel continuing. But theres no reason at all for Hamas not to surrender. Their people are dying. Their homes are gone. There being threatened with occupation and all power being forcibly taken and given to those over whom they have no influence. Whats in it for them? Nothing. Apart from the cause, and the hatred.

I expect they hoped it would but other countries have been too sensible to pick a fight with Israel (& the US).

I still can’t understand why Hamas didn’t surrender months ago. Is it just male egos at the end of the day?

I suspect they didn’t think it would be just Hamas against Israel. I wonder if they thought it might provoke a wider Middle East conflict drawing other countries in.

Very interesting @EllaDisenchanted I did not know all that background history.

Sinwar's wife is now living in Turkey with their children and a new husband, apparently. He protected his own while making no plan for other people's wives and children.

It does really feel like Netanyahu has lost hope in reaching a ceasefire agreement. Though according to the link you posted there is still a glimmer of hope as Huckabee says that since Israel began moving toward expanding its military operations, Hamas has expressed interest in restarting negotiations. “One has to wonder, [is Hamas] really serious about ending this?”

No

i think it’s likely they underestimated Israel’s ability to mount a response for multiple reasons.

from what I’ve read they expected Hezbollah at the least to join in, and possibly Iran and the Houthis too. There’s been evidence that Hezbollah had plans drawn up to invade the north in a similar fashion. A joint two prong invasion would have been crippling for Israel- the response was slow and fragmented as it was. Add in a northern invasion to the southern invasion on Oct 7th and the damage and chaos in Israel would have been incalculable- that would have certainly affected Israel’s ability to respond.

there was massive civil unrest in Israel before October 7th, I’m sure they were relying on a fractured and divided people being unable to work together.

The date was also psychologically and militarily significant- it was very close to the 50 year anniversary of the Yom Kippur war. Simchas Torah (the festival that Oct 7th was on) is part of the same group of festivals. they’d have also been aware that many soldiers would be home for the festival.

It was also led by Sinwar, himself released in a hostage exchange - he knew what price Israel would pay to get their people back, and likely calculated on being able to stop any Israeli response using the hostages.

there’s also a historical pattern of hostage taking by Hamas and massive prisoner releases in exchange- they may have been counting on that.

But ultimately, I don’t think that sinwar cared. He got his own wife out- what about protecting everyone else?!?even if he thought he could stop any response from Israel through hostage negotiations, wouldn’t you make a backup plan to protect your people?

@Twiglets1 netanyahu seems to be going hard for an all for all deal .https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-august-12-2025/

There was a brief point at the end of July where it seemed negotiations were getting somewhere, the Arab league were pressurising Hamas, and then it all fell apart.

Do you also think that maybe Hamas underestimated the harm they would do to their own people by unleashing hell on 7/10?

It’s a little more nuanced than that to be fair. In many cases people imprisoned by Israel weren’t found guilty of anything.

I would probably agree. I think he underestimated Hamas. They can not be beaten with firepower and all Netanyahu has achieved is creating the next generations of fighters, be that under the name of Hamas or as a new group that will appear, made up of aggrieved younger generations who were nothing to do with Hamas and wanting to avenge the needless slaughter of innocents.

I usually just lurk on this board but I just wanted to thank some of the posters for adding some information I didn't know.
Personally, I doubt that anyone would feel their military goals had been achieved by just kicking the threat a few years down the road. That's not usually what militaries are going for.
As for negotiating for hostages, as @Voxon just said, but it bears repeating, if Israel empty the prisons of convicted terrorists every time Hamas grabs some Israelis off the streets, they'll basically incentivise kidnapping. It's an unfair trade anyway because the terrorists weren't kidnapped by Israel, they were found guilty of serious crime, and the Israelis weren't criminals who did anything to Hamas. Israel are trying to increase security not reward terrorism.

To me it seems that the hostages were the highest priority at the beginning of the war. Imagine if Hamas had just given them all back unharmed at the beginning- maybe then they could have gained a lot in return.

But at this point - I think Netanyahu has pretty much given up hope that he will get the remaining hostages home alive. The negotiations aren’t working so they are no longer a top priority (though obviously he can’t say that). Just my opinion.

Considering Netanyahu is on record saying that the hostages are not the first priority of the war, I doubt it. The truth is the hostages just aren't important enough to him because he has other goals in all this.

Hamas are in no position to do anything like Oct 7 and are unlikely to be able to do so for years because there was a WAR.

Ignoring your genius theory that the best approach is to just let Hamas murder and kidnap people indefinitely and then “trade” for them later - why don’t you try being specific?

If you tell someone that only “one or two” of the dozen facts they just listed are true, then do us all a favour and actually say which ones you think are false.

That way, I can bring the evidence for each… which you can then completely ignore before jumping to a different point without ever admitting you were wrong.

That’s how this works, right?

This thread is very confusing.

Broadly speaking, You don’t negotiate with terrorists because doing so rewards violence and sets a precedent that terrorism works.

If you give in to demands - ransom, prisoner swaps, political concessions - you prove to every other extremist group that hostage-taking and mass violence are effective tools. That encourages more attacks, more kidnappings, and more deaths.

Israel has had the power to win a war against Gaza for decades. It has chosen not to have one, even though multiple kidnappings, terror attacks and thousands of missiles have been fired at Israel it hasn't responded with a war because it didn't want one.

But Israel was politically split. There is fundamentally a territory on its border that is utterly committed to its destruction. In every possible sense.

Many Israelis tried very hard to make peace. There's been peace talks. The Oslo Accords. Ceasefires. Jobs - at one point before the twrror attacks there was 100k Gazans going to work in Israel every day.

Israel handed over the land, homes, greenhouses, and infrastructure and voluntarily removed every Jew from Gaza.

Israeli NGOs, like Rabbis for Human Rights and Gisha, have advocated for Gazans and helped them over and over. Israeli NGOs like Save a Child’s Heart have brought hundreds of Gazan children (and their parents) into Israel for free heart surgeries.

Every year, thousands of Gazans have been admitted into Israel for life-saving treatment - including cancer care, heart surgery, dialysis, and emergency trauma care. This has continued even during times of conflict, with special permits issued for urgent cases.

Gisha (Israeli NGO) provides legal aid to Gazans to help them travel for education, family reunification, or medical care.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel assists Gazans in getting medical permits and challenges refusals in Israeli courts.

Individual Israeli lawyers and activists have represented Gazans pro bono in petitions to the Israeli High Court of Justice over family unification, exit permits, and humanitarian access.

And israel's vast military expenditure wasn't focused on firing weapons. It wax focused on defensive weapons. State of the art systems to protect it from people firing at them. Constantly.

And ultimately it all made no difference. October 7 was what was chosen.

I was reading a hostage today explaining he was held captive by a journalist from Al Jazeera and his local doctor Father.

So israels military goal isn't just about getting hostages back- its about ensuring October 7 never happens again. That (the security of its citizens) is the primary and most important responsibility of any government.

"Israel withdrew totally from Gaza in 2005 and the IDF dragged the Jewish community kicking and screaming from their homes to facilitate that, and also dug up the graves of the Jews buried there to move their remains out of Gaza, for PEACE.
Palestinians immediately then destroyed greenhouses left for them to continue the $ billion flower and fruit industry set up by the Israelis."

Crazy wasn't it. Given the lot and then destroyed the lot. Even with the mega billions in aid over the years, where has it all gone. It didn't go into building a better society and a peaceful future for their children.

No, OP. The thought of it is ridiculous. I think we in the West have a very hard time understanding theocracy - it’s not like Western politics where compromise, persuasion etc feature. Their beliefs are absolute - they would rather let their whole population starve to death than release the hostages and end the ‘jihad’ without their demands. That’s what makes this whole thing so hard to solve.

Hamas had to be defeated. It was bigger than just getting back the hostages. It still is.

@ConscientiousObserver brilliant post, thank you.

I can see why, assuming it was genuinely an option, doing a hostage for prisoner swap wouldn't have worked. It would have essentially rewarded Hamas for the slaughter and hostage taking - nothing lost, and a huge amount gained in getting back thousands of their members.

It would have led to more attacks and kidnappings every time they wanted further prisoner releases.

I think I agree but it’s such a difficult subject.

Negotiating with terrorists isn’t working though & arguably will never work in the long term where Hamas are involved.

Yeah... the last time they negotiated with Hamas, Hamas got Yahya Sinwar back. That obviously went brilliantly.

I'm no supporter of the current Israeli gov't but I'd boil my reply down to "You don't negotiate with terrorists". Or maybe "You don't negotiate with well-financed Jihadi death cults".

Exactly.