To find it fascinating that…

[BooToYouHalloween]

Out of the endless, obsessive threads on here about Gaza (“Conflict in the Middle East” LOL just be honest and call it the Gaza/Israel board since no one on here could probably even name another country in the Middle East let alone the numerous other conflicts there) there has not been one thread dedicated to the release of three female hostages yesterday.

Mumsnet is predominantly frequented by women, many of whom claim to have women and girls’ interests at heart and yet photographs of these three young women, who’ve been held at gunpoint by men for more than 15 months, who were made to wear specific outfits and smile for the camera before being released into a terrifying baying mob of masked men wielding machine guns literally stomping on top of Red Cross vans - with at least one of the woman we know for 100% having been the victim of male violence since she’s missing her fingers which they shot off her hand - while the others are very likely to have been sexually abused - doesn’t even warrant a thread.

It’s like maybe most of you that frequent this board don’t actually give a crap about humanitarianism… so I wonder what could be prompting your obsession with this conflict? Hmmm 🤔🤔🤔

Certainly not. Don't put words in peoples mouths

@BooToYouHalloween completley agree with what you have said. I’m tapping out now as the same old names and same threads come up. You can’t win with posters who are still claiming that the prisoners are as innocent as the hostages. It’s delusional and offensive.

Anyway, on that note, bring them home 🎗️

They released some detainees yesterday and if they really cared would suggest detainees again. But they'd quite like their terrorists scumbag mates back instead. So as this shows the sort of people they really want back in gaza. Hamas eh, selfish, cowardly, scum.

TBF I’m sure conditions were horrific on both sides.

It's why many stopped posting in threads before.

Bring the hostages home. Give us the babies (or sadly their bodies) for your terrorists.

I am truly happy to see the three hostages released and saddened to think that prof the long road ahead of them. We can only hope that the process can stagger forward until all the hostages are restored to their families.

I looked at the list of the first 90 prisoners released- all women or teenage boys, one as young as 15.
This woman’s story is fascinating-her imprisonment was clearly an embarrassment to the Israeli government. One of her “crimes” was attending a book fair

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalida_Jarrar

Have you seen the videos of the girls after ? This one broke my heart . She is so ill and people are saying they all look happy and ok . They are not ok these very young women have gone through hell .Its heartbreaking to even imagine what hams did to them

www.facebook.com/share/v/1DaAcFEH7f/?mibextid=wwXIfr

@Kindatired She looked so ill, thin and pale yesterday after her release. I would not have known it was the same woman.

Horrific, no they are definitely not ok I haven't heard anyone claiming they are and the psychological scars are unseen but worse.

This is what I'd been led to expect but who were all those women released yesterday?

I read that for each hostage released Israel will release 3 terrorist prisoners or 10 prisoners who had committed more minor crimes. So those yesterday must be the more minor ones. It must be reported somewhere but I can't find it.

I have seen Israel accused of holding and abusing women and children without charge. It is the first time I'd heard that and the release of a load of women makes me want to investigate. But my news feed is very pro Israel so it is hard to find.

and I was waiting to see if anyone started one

Why were you waiting for someone else to? If you want something done in this world you need to do it yourself

I have seen Israel accused of holding and abusing women and children without charge.

this has been reported time after time. In nov 2023 ceasefire same thing happened.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67600015.amp

B'Tselem is an Israeli organisation which investigates and reports on human rights concerns in Israel and Palestine, so could be a starting point for you? (Disclaimer: not a personal endorsement of everything they say or do, other organisations exist, etc.)

Thank you I will look there.

I am hoping all the hostages will be freed but am very worried about the babies and children, please let them be next.

They’re not next. The next cohort are four more women.

It's awful. Heartbreaking.

They will be last , Hamas knows all to well the family with the babies is the one most people speak about . I hope they are alive , every time I see their photos it’s just pure heartbreak

Hamas will keep the babies until last. get a few more terrorists out first.

The last hostages in this tranche to come out are likely to be bodies. So if the kids are last it’s not good. The whole thing is horrific. And most people, even on a site ostensibly for mums, don’t give a shit. That’s why this situation has been allowed to continue. I read this from an interview with Hersh Goldberg Polin’s dad yesterday and it summed it up perfectly:

”I’m going to say something that sounds almost naive and idealistic, but it’s 2025—why does the world accept a situation in which 250-plus people are taken from their land, most of them from a music festival and from their beds, taken into captivity? The world accepts it. It’s astonishing to me. There are forms of torture that are effectively outlawed now. I’m sure they exist in pockets, but they’re effectively outlawed. The rack is something that the world has said—that can’t be used. How is it possible that innocent civilians are taken en masse and the world still, after 472 days, has not made it abundantly clear that that is just not okay and it must be reversed immediately?

On October 9 and 10 and 11 and 12, I was waiting for a pronouncement from a group of foreign ministers, prime ministers. It never happened. It still hasn’t happened. We could talk about international aid bodies. The United Nations failed us in this situation. The International Committee of the Red Cross completely failed us. Some of this has been documented, more of these stories will be told, but the international community was a total unmitigated failure.”

You have left out quite a bit of history there. You no the occupation and genocide... Yes what had happened to the hostages is awful but it's didn't happen in a vacuum did it. Israel isn't an innocent party at all

What do you mean? Did you not see the news on October 8th? Heads of states, prime ministers, foreign ministers, all condemned the attack and hostage taking. Many flew over to Israel to show solidarity or sent representatives.

@BooToYouHalloween and @Pebblesonthebeach40
Firstly I am delighted for these hostages and hope more will follow them out of captivity and into safety
But many posters here seem to be in total ignorance of what Israel has got up to over the years. So for a bit of balance which can apply across quite a few threads just now - rock throwing Palestinian children 2001.

Chris Hedges 2001. It starts with an Israeli voice

"Come on, dogs," the voice booms in Arabic. "Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!" / I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: "Son of a bitch!" "Son of a whore!" "Your mother’s cunt!"
The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parked on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come.

A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children’s slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos.

Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered—death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo—but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.

1. Even if you accept that what happened in Gaza was genocide, clearly that happened AFTER October 7th, so could not have been the motivation for it.
2. "Israel isn't an innocent party". You are saying that if a country has acted badly, it is sometimes justified to kidnap and murder innocent civilians?

Show me where I said that??