Why are terrorists being released when hostages still remain in captivity?

If you are the parents of Noa Marciano, one of the IDF observers who tried to warn intelligence authorities, well before October 7th, that suspicious activities of Hamas were pointing towards an imminent surprise attack, you just got the biggest slap in the face, upon hearing the news that 120 terrorists, along with the director of Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, were released.

Adi and Avi Marciano, who appeared on last night’s N12 evening news, stood dumbfounded and incredulous as they reacted to yesterday’s decision made by Israel’s security forces, Shin Bet, to no longer hold Gazan detainees who were in their custody, as well as Dr. Muhammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital. The reason given, “no concrete proof was ever publicly produced to suggest that Abu Salmiya was directly involved in any of this.”

For the Marciano’s, whose daughter was killed, early on while in captivity, it was a complete betrayal for them to discover, just as everyone else, who heard it on the news, causing them to feel as if “someone had stabbed them in the heart.” They blame this controversial decision, which they say “demands a real inquiry to expose all the failures” on “the prime minister, the cabinet, the IDF and Shin Bet.

But they are not the only ones who have reacted so harshly. Other families of the hostages responded by saying, “Israel let a murderer go free. The decision to release 120 terrorists without us, the families of the hostages, receiving even a sign of life from our loved ones is a puzzling one. Moreover, this is a decision that is not consistent with the principles of negotiations according to which you give something and get something in return.”

And who can blame these families who, nine months later, still have no idea if their loved ones are still alive since no one, including the Red Cross, has been permitted to check on their status? While everyone is trying to make some sense out of why these obvious accomplices, to the October 7th massacre, would be considered guiltless enough to release, no one has offered any logical or reasonable explanation that would, at least, offer some kind of plausible justification.

Because once it was discovered that Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital had been used as a safe haven for Hamas operatives, even to the point of disguising terrorists as staff, there was no question that the director had to know what was going on, right under his nose, as a “network of tunnels and bunkers were buried under the hospital,” a disclosure made by IDF forces who disclosed the footage back in November.

How would it be possible for such daily activity to take place without the full knowledge and tacit complicity of all who worked there, especially the hospital director? The evidence was overwhelming in order to incriminate those involved, for harboring and assisting these terrorists, but now, we are being told that these same individuals were released for lack of evidence. Something doesn’t add up!

Lack of space for detainees is just one of the reasons being given for the sudden release. Shin Bet, who made the decision, has turned around and blamed Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir for his failure to provide additional space to hold detainees, claiming that they had repeatedly made it known that there was inadequate room to house thousands more detainees who were expected to be held during the ongoing investigation.

Going on the record as being opposed to their release, Shin Bet stated that they simply had no choice, except to let these detainees go, but how is that possible? Could no facility be found to temporarily hold them while a makeshift structure was quickly built, especially knowing that these individuals posed a real danger, given what they’d already done?

To make matters worse, Shin Bet claims that both they and the IDF have “slowed the pace of new arrests because of a lack of space to absorb any new detainees as well as releasing dangerous detainees on a sliding scale as required by existing law, grading detainees according to their level of danger.”

Of course, none of these revelations are comforting to the Israeli public who is now led to believe that our security services, as well as our military leaders, have been reluctant to round up potentially dangerous criminals for lack of space in which to hold them. And while the hospital director, himself, was considered to be dangerous, he, too, was downgraded when making the comparison to the combat terrorists who are deemed to present a greater threat to the public. 

From their point of view, it makes sense – release the least dangerous while locking up the hardened criminal terrorists who wouldn’t think twice to commit the murder, rape and torture of Israeli citizens if given another chance. But is that good enough? Because it’s like allowing the one who pillaged and robbed your house to go free, because his crime was less grievous than the one who killed the family inside while the robbery was occurring.

October 7th was, unquestionably, a huge blow and the biggest breach of security in the 76-year existence of the Jewish state, but how are we to overlook what happened as a one-off lapse in judgment, when we hear that dangerous accomplices, to terror, are now roaming free amongst us as a result of being deemed to be “less dangerous” by those who are tasked with the job of protecting each one of us?

And if you’re a family member of a hostage, who is still languishing in the dark hell of Gazan tunnels, how does this make you feel to know that the fate of your loved ones is unknown while these evildoers are free to breathe the fresh air of the Mediterranean after having facilitated the capturing, murder and torture of innocents?

None of this seems acceptable, prudent or fair to anyone who has a working sense of justice. It also lacks credibility to suggest that, given the vast amount of construction workers who reside in Israel, and given the serious threat that terrorists continue to pose to the general public, that some accommodation could not be found to guarantee these people would not end up as free agents due to the lack of a facility in which to contain them.

Are we supposed to believe that if many more thousands of terrorists are caught that we will also have no alternative but to release them, as well? If this is our situation, then we must confront the deplorable oversight of massive unpreparedness and attack it head-on in order to make sure that Israel’s citizens are provided with the safe haven they’ve always been promised!