WHEN HOSTAGES ARE USED AS BARGAINING CHIPS

Hamas Is using captured Israelis for propaganda and barter. The International community should pressure the militant group to release them right away

- MAKARANDR PARANJAPE

AS the Israel-Hamas war grinds through its second week, there is increasing pressure from the international community on Israel not to invade Gaza. Perfectly understandable, given the enormity of the impending human tragedy in that densely populated strip of land. But we rarely ask why there isn't a commensurate, even comparable, pressure upon Hamas to release itsIsraeli hostages. Wouldn't such a release be a goodwill gesture on their part if they really wanted to save Gazans?

But the truth, so horrifying that we often do not think of it, is that the real hostages of Hamas are not the 200 or so Israelis that they captured in their raid on October 7. The real hostages are possibly the more than 2 million Gaza residents themselves. Once a terror group like Hamas takes over a city or part of a country or even an entire nation, what they do is eliminate rivals so that the whole population becomes captive to them and their hate-filled ideology. The irony is that some of these groups, Hamas now and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the past, actually enjoyed popular support despite their avowedly violent ideology and cult of death. It is this popular support that needs to be called into question. But far from it, there are sections among all free societies which continue to support their cause. In other words, Hamas's hostages include an even larger international community.