Hamas Is Starving Israelis Held Hostage

Fed a steady diet of horror stories about an Israel-induced Gaza famine, world leaders are being exposed to a real starvation campaign — the one against hostages. Over the weekend Hamas released videos of two emaciated Israelis, Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski. Mr. Braslavski wept on camera, begging for his life. A skeletal Mr. David was seen digging a grave inside a Hamas tunnel, saying he would soon die and be buried there. Hamas officials say that the hostages receive as much food as everyone else in famine-stricken Gaza. Yet the video shows a captor handing out a can to Mr. David, whose bones stick out of his body. The Hamas terrorist’s arm appears healthy, well fed. Former Israeli hostages testify they were constantly tormented and denied food, even as they could see Hamas jailers nearby sharing plenty of meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit every day.“I know what’s behind that iron door,” a recently released Israeli hostage who was held in the tunnel dungeon with Mr. David, Omer Wenkert, said. “I smelled the food every day while I was given just two handfuls of rice.” His Hamas captors, he said, “have light. They have supplies. They have everything they need.” Yet, Messrs. David and Braslavski look like Holocaust survivors. After 668 days, these hostages must be freed, Mr. Wenkert cried. The videos of the two men were so horrific that even top champions of “Palestine” were shocked. “An abject cruelty, an unlimited inhumanity: This is what Hamas embodies,” President Macron writes. “The images of hostages being paraded for propaganda are sickening,” Britain’s foreign minister, David Lammy, adds. At Israel’s request, the UN Security Council will for the first time meet Tuesday to discuss the hostages’ plight. Spare us. The press is highlighting daily Hamas reports of starvation in Gaza. In reaction, Paris has led a number of Western countries in a vow to recognize a Palestinian state. Britain, grotesquely, said it would do the same — unless the war ends and all the hostages are released. Wouldn’t that give Hamas an extra incentive to keep tormenting the hostages and their families? If they keep holding the hostages, London would recognize their state. That is exactly what Hamas leaders see coming. The decision to launch the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust was well worth it, they say. Terrorism has won the day. “The initiative by several countries to recognize a Palestinian state is one of the fruits of October 7,” a Hamas leader, Ghazi Hamad, tells Al Jazeera. “We proved that victory over Israel is not impossible, and our weapons are a symbol of Palestinian dignity.”Hamas confiscates aid donations and keeps the donations in its warehouses to sell at ever higher prices. World leaders then claim Israel commits genocide by starving innocent Gazans. No wonder Hamas officials at Doha are now demanding to receive unlimited humanitarian assistance before returning to the negotiation process they have recently abandoned. That assistance will surely be utilized to enrich Hamas and recoup its losses in battle. UN diplomats on Tuesday will undoubtedly express displeasure with Hamas. “Every hostage must be released unconditionally,” Mr. Lammy writes. Some conditions are attached, though. The ultimate solution, per the Londonite, “must begin with an immediate ceasefire” and “removing inhumane aid restrictions.” Hamas, he adds, “must disarm and have no control over Gaza.” Yet as Mr. Hamad makes clear, Hamas will “never” disarm. Families of hostages are anguished. A growing number of Israelis are calling on Prime Minister Natanyhyu to end the war and save the hostages in a deal with Hamas. “They don’t want a deal,” Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday. Far be it from us to tell Israelis how to conduct the most consequential war they have faced in decades. Yet, as Hamas exposes its own cruelty, can Western leaders, for once, side with an ally, rather than fall for a terrorist campaign from hell?

Hamas Is Starving Israelis Held Hostage

Hamas Is Starving Israelis Held Hostage

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