What are Hamas playing at?

[elprup]

It’s deeply worrying that Hamas haven’t returned all the dead hostages as agreed. I’ve seen comments saying it’s an impossible task given how Gaza has been reduced to rubble. But if that’s the case, they would have known they had lost the bodies. So why did they agree to return them if they knew they weren’t able to do so?

Apart from Hamas there are multiple other armed gangs in Gaza now competing for control in the power vacuum following IDF withdrawal. Some of the hostages may well have been under the control of these groups or in territory controlled by them. Identifying and exticating the remains (following carpet bombing by Israel) will now be difficult and in some cases impossible.

That woman looks like she's alive. Proud of your progress!

She doesnt look alive. She looks like she has the resting face of a tax audit.

Because they wanted their people back. Although theirs went back in coaches not body bags.

Ah shame, and here was me thinking you were working through the corpse thing.

Was the body of the young girl abducted from the Nova festival and paraded half naked through the streets of Gaza on the back of a truck whilst people jeered and mocked her returned to her mother?
Hamas are terrorists, now shooting their own people. The bodies of the other Israelis who were captured on October 7th would have been stowed away in the complex tunnels where Hamas hid. They are taking their time giving them back.
Remove Hamas completely and Gaza can be rebuilt and a far happier place for its citizens. I want peace for everyone but I can’t see it working with Hamas hiding behind citizens unable to defend themselves.

I deeply deeply wish I had never clicked on this thread.
It's a living example of why peace is so hard to achieve.
Page after page of people blaming the other side, refusing to see the faults of people on their "own" side, the determination to dehumanise EVERYONE associated with the other side.
Hamas AND the Palestinian people.
Israeli government AND the Israeli people.
Make it stop.
The human race is fucked if this doesn't stop.

Weird.

Honestly, I think this was entirely predictable and it’s a bit naive/ performative to act like it’s come as a great shock. Let’s be entirely pragmatic:

1. There was previously the mix up with Shiri Bibas’s body - so we already knew they were having difficulty keeping track of who was who.

2. A number of hostages will have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. They won’t be the only bodies in the rubble of those buildings, and it's entirely possible that the bodies of unrelated Palestinians have been extracted and kept hold of under the mistaken belief that those were the hostages.

3. A lot of these people died either on October 7th or shortly afterwards - that’s a long time to keep hold of bodies amidst the total chaos of two years of total war, when the militant groups were constantly on the move, fleeing Israeli advances. Plus, tens of thousands of Hamas soldiers and other militants have been killed - - what if everyone who knew where a particular body was is now dead?

4. Additionally, the fact that a lot of these people have been dead for two years means they will be severely decomposed and clearly Gaza doesn’t have the scientific capacity to identify them.

5. Hamas isn’t the only militant group that took hostages, and the relationships between these groups are extremely strained. They may genuinely have no idea what happened to the remains of hostages taken by other groups.

I’m absolutely not saying any of this to defend Hamas - they could easily have avoided all of this by simply not taking hostages. I just think it’s important to recognise the major complexities here, and accept the possibility that the remains of some hostages may be lost forever.

Thank you. Some sense at last.

Isn't it just.

Yes, indeed
Think how many lives would have been saved if they'd have allowed the people to shelter in the extensive tunnel network

Yes, unfortunately, too many people in the West have believed the Hamas propaganda, broken this whole complicated issue down to placards and chants, and don't understand what a Hamas victory would look like.
Scary.

Evil? You think that the Israeli government are evil? You’re equating them with Hamas?

Yes, Shani Louk’s body was recovered by the Israeli military in May 2024.

Can Gaza be happier?

Hamas, apparently, as I was told on various threads, were democratically voted in. Over 20 years ago.

But that wasn’t their agenda. I don’t understand how people can’t see that! The only reason that Israel isn’t rubble is because they spend a huge proportion of their money on defense systems and shelters. Israeli children have spent their lives running to bomb shelters, hearing bombs around them, having short school days because there’s not enough funding for education or welfare. Nobody even considers innocent Israeli children, ever!!

Exactly! I agree. I think it comes from a misunderstanding of the agenda of Hamas - clearly demonstrated on this thread.

On the point about Hamas not having scientific capacity, though, there's this from the Guardian article quoted earlier on the thread

Forensic authorities in Gaza have started the identification process of 45 bodies of Palestinians that Israel released on Tuesday as part of the ceasefire deal, according to the health ministry. Israel is expected to transfer more bodies, though the total number has not been announced.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/oct/15/gaza-ceasefire-israel-hamas-palestine-aid-hostages-detainees-prisoners-live-news-update

This is a very difficult question. They need more than just fair elections. They need re-education, they need exposure to diversity and freedom of expression, they need to remove Islam extremism from their agenda and embrace all religions and secular mindsets. They deserve hope and they deserve to have a thriving society. I just don’t know how that can be achieved. I also think that the refugee concept needs addressing. You can’t claim to be a Palestinian if you weren’t born there or are descendants of Palestinians, any more than I can clam to be Polish and demand refugee status from Poland because my parents were born there. I also feel that the idea of creating a state which is purely Muslim (the Christian Palestinians are slowly being exiled now, and there are no other religions there at all) is unethical. In Israel there are around 7 million Jews, around 2 million Muslims, and collectively around 1.5 million Christian’s and other faiths. It’s not only a country for Jews although it is a Jewish majority state. I honestly don’t know what can happen going forward unless there is some kind of interim government in place that can begin the process of rebuilding society to create a country where people can live in peace and prosperity.

Yes. You have to have a secular society, one where government and religion are not entwined.

Good points, @Jujujudo . Also get rid of the idea of wiping out Israel, killing the Jews and the Arab and Christian Israelis, killing the gays and subjugating the women. The "river to the sea" narrative. Conciliation and toleration are needed - education, as you say.

I have just come back from Turkey and I was looking up population stats and it is interesting to note that 99.8% of the population identify as Muslim. It is apparent therefore that its not the religion that is a problem but rather the extremism.

Yes, @Ontheedgeofit - it's not mainstream Muslim culture and beliefs, but that of Islamism. A fascist and intolerant ideology. They want a borderless Caliphate and really don't care if the Palestinians are collateral damage.

Yes. They are committing war crimes everyday. It is an entirely disproportionate response.

If the Israeli government think what they have done is right why aren't they defending themselves in the ICC, which has accused them of war crimes.