EDITORIAL — Wasting their bargaining chips

In an unfortunate development for peace talks in Gaza, the bodies of six Israelis taken hostage during the October 7 Hamas attack were found last Sunday in an underground tunnel.

According to the Israel Defense Force (IDF), the bodies of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Eden Yerushalmi, and Ori Danino were found in a tunnel not far from another tunnel where a hostage had been rescued days earlier.

The IDF said all six bore close-quarter gunshot wounds, indicating that they had been executed, and that they had been killed just shortly before the IDF could reach them.

What makes the situation sadder is that that Polin, Yerushalmi, and Gat were already set to be released as part of the “humanitarian category” based on the framework Israel and Hamas agreed to in early July.

We don’t know all the circumstances behind the deaths, whether Hamas terrorists panicked at approaching IDF troops and killed them, if Hamas never really intended to release them at all, if Hamas deliberately killed them and let the IDF find them, or if something else entirely different happened that led to their deaths.

But what we are sure of is that this doesn’t bode well for the rest of the hostages still alive under Hamas captivity, as well any talks about peace in Gaza.

For now the IDF actually has reason to hold back on their attacks, and this is because they know that what the people of Gaza are suffering may be the same suffering their compatriots taken hostage are going through.

If the IDF ever feels that there will no longer be any hope for any more hostages to be released, we can only expect they will rain even more fire and fury on Hamas as well as Gaza.

On the part of Hamas, it really isn’t smart to be wasting their only bargaining chips in negotiating for peace. Once any advantage they have over the IDF is gone it will be their end.

Hamas must harbor no illusions that the world is on their side. While the sympathy the world feels is for the people of Gaza and Palestinians in general, this sympathy doesn’t extend to the terrorists who took hostages during their attack.