After nearly seven weeks in captivity, 24 hostages seized by Hamas in its deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel are now free after crossing into Egypt. In exchange, Israel released 39 Palestinians hours later at the city of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hopefully a good start to negotiations for peace.
Why did Israel have Palestinian hostages?
They don’t.
Hamas demanded the release of convicted prisoners. Most are for relatively minor violent offenses like throwing stones at police or soldiers. Many of them are prosecuted under military law, as they may not be citizens of Israel, which has been a point of criticism.
They do. Some NGO’s estimates think that up to 12000 Palestinians are held by Israel, a huge chunk without trial nor conviction. But it includes nearly 500 children, some as young as 12 years old. Your CNN article is a bit more conservative citing over 8,000, 350 children and 3,000 without trial. But Israel is not exactly transparent with their process and a lot more are missing with suspected detention. They also regularly torture and rape all the Palestinian prisoners, including the children, or “prisoners under 18 years old” as Israel likes to call them.
EDIT: Grammar.
Try to ask again, but do you have a source for all of these very specific statistics and claims?
As I mentioned, it has been a point of criticism. I’m afraid I don’t have sources for everything you’ve claimed here, but I’d be interested in seeing them. Why is there such disparity in the numbers? Why does CNN not use the NGO numbers if they are reliable?
Stone throwing is a common form of protest in Israel and rarely results in serious injury. Nonetheless, it carries up to 20 years prison sentence. There is a ridiculously high conviction rate, and little or no legal representation, minors are often interrogated without parents, etc. etc.
It’s probably not accurate to call them “Hostages.” More like wrongful conviction? I’m not sure the best term. Probably why the article avoids it.
Good news.
Thanks Uncle Joe.