Until a few days before the start of the temporary truce between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian resistance, led by the Hamas movement, the families of Israeli prisoners – held by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip – continued their marches in front of the Israeli Ministry of Defense building in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, with the participation of tens of thousands in order to put pressure on the Prime Minister. The Israeli forces kept repeating that their forces would continue their war on Gaza until these prisoners were forcibly liberated.
According to its confessions, the occupation lost more than 70 soldiers inside the Gaza Strip, and it is expected that the real number of deaths is several times this number, in addition to thousands of wounded and hundreds of destroyed vehicles.
The greatest loss – for the families of the detainees – was the killing of many detainees during the Israeli bombing operations on homes in the Gaza Strip, as the resistance’s statements indicated that 60 of them were killed during the Israeli bombing. This result, alone, indicates the failure of the option of liberating the prisoners by force in Gaza.
Of course, the truce – which lasted for 7 days since November 24 – was practical evidence of the collapse of the process of liberating detainees in Gaza by force, after the Israeli occupation forces practically failed to do anything, and all their narratives and information that promoted that the detainees and the leadership of the Hamas movement failed. They are located in headquarters under Al-Shifa and Al-Rantisi hospitals, which has been proven false in front of the whole world.
On a practical level, the occupying state – historically – has not been able to succeed in liberating prisoners held by Palestinian organizations or even Arab countries, except through negotiations.
Forced liberation has historically failed
Throughout history, there have been many failed attempts to liberate prisoners, and the matter did not stop there. Rather, these attempts led to adverse results. The first was the infliction of deaths and injuries on the attacking party, sometimes more than the number of prisoners who were being attempted to be liberated, and in most cases the prisoners themselves were killed.
Attempts to free prisoners by force also increase the possibility of escalation of the conflict and loss of trust. Which leads to things getting out of control. For example, in World War I, Russian forces tried to free prisoners of war from German concentration camps. Which led to the Battle of Kursk, which ended in the defeat of the Russian forces.
In the American Civil War, federal forces tried to free prisoners from Confederate concentration camps. Which led to the Battle of Springfield, in which the Federal forces were defeated.
Considering the scientific results on this subject, a 2015 Harvard University study – based on statistical analysis – found that the success rate of liberating prisoners by force is only 20%.
While a study by the University of Cambridge in 2017 – based on a dedicated case study – proved that the success rate of liberating prisoners by force is only 15%, while a study at the University of Oxford in 2019 entitled: “Liberating prisoners by force: a cost-benefit analysis,” found that Freeing prisoners by force often leads to escalation of the conflict and increased casualties.
Failure on a practical level
On a practical level, the occupying state has not been able – historically – to succeed in liberating prisoners held by Palestinian organizations or even Arab countries, except through negotiations, the last of which was the temporary truce in November 2023, and the Gilad Shalit deal on October 18, 2011. With the Hamas movement, and the “Nawras” deal in 1983 with the Popular Front General Command, and before that another deal with the Popular Front in 1979.
For example, the use of a definitive negotiation method led to the failure of an exchange deal for the Israeli pilot Ron Arad, who was captured in 1986. Contact with the captors was cut off to this day, and everyone who captures Israeli soldiers – to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for them – continues to remind the occupation of its treatment. With the case of Ron Arad.
This incident has a special dimension for the current Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevy, who was involved in the kidnapping of the leader of the Amal Movement, Mustafa Al-Dirani, in 1994 to obtain information about Ron Arad, but the occupation did not obtain anything, and Al-Dirani even left in 2004 in an exchange deal.
In 1992, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin refused to release Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in exchange for the release of soldier Nissim Toledano, and after the expiration of the Qassam Brigades’ ten-day deadline, the soldier was killed.
By the way, the occupation government deported 415 leaders from the Hamas movement to “Marj al-Zuhur.” In response to this process, the result was completely the opposite, as the deportation process provided a unifying meeting for the Hamas movement, which contributed to the unification of the movement’s thought and decisions and its cohesion.
In 1994, the Israeli occupation government refused to deal with the demands of the Hamas movement, which captured soldier Nahshon Wachsman. In the end, the soldier was killed, and a number of Israeli soldiers who tried to free him by force were killed and injured. This incident is still stuck in the mind of the decision-maker of the occupation government, specifically Herzi Halevy, who was a member of the “Seret Methkal” unit, which was surrounding the house where the soldier was located.
In 2014, Hamas captured soldiers Aaron Shaul and Hadar Goldin in a military ambush. In 2016, the Al-Qassam Brigades captured Abraham Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayyid, and the occupation is still delaying achieving an exchange agreement regarding them. Which made their fate closer to that of Ron Arad.
The only case in the history of the conflict in which the occupying state succeeded, relatively speaking, in liberating hostages was not in Palestine, and was not, in fact, a success in the overall outcome. It came after two Palestinians from the Popular Front hijacked a passenger plane with 103 Israelis on board in 1976 and took it off. Athens Airport to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. One of the reasons for the successful liberation by force was to make the two captives believe that it was negotiating with them and was about to respond to their demands to release 53 Palestinian prisoners. However, Israeli commandos killed 20 Ugandan soldiers, and officer Jonathan Netanyahu, Benjamin’s brother, was also killed during the operation. Netanyahu, in addition to 3 other Israeli detainees.
Thus, relations between Uganda and Tel Aviv were severed, and the attackers killed 3 Israeli hostages, one of whom remains engraved – in particular – in the memory of Netanyahu himself, who today leads the decision-making process regarding the liberation of Israeli detainees and prisoners in the Gaza Strip.
Thus, we can say that if studies in 3 prestigious universities have proven that the rate of liberating prisoners by force reaches 15-20%, then the success rate of the Israeli occupation in liberating prisoners inside Palestine by force – specifically from the hands of the Qassam Brigades – is zero.
If some consider the Entebbe operation to be an example of a successful operation to liberate prisoners by force, then the severing of diplomatic relations with Uganda, the killing of a senior attacking officer, and 3 Israeli detainees as a result of this operation, cast doubt on the success of this example to a great extent.
In fact, the occupation is in great trouble when it comes to the issues of the families of its soldiers and settlers. In both cases, it will inevitably lose. Whether by accepting the demands of the Palestinian resistance forces and implementing exchange deals, or by being stubborn and arrogant, and seeking to liberate the prisoners by force; Which causes him losses that may exceed his calculations, and results that scientific and practical experience have proven will not be in his favor in the end.
I wrote the lines of this article before Al-Qassam announced – during the current aggression on Gaza – the killing of the Israeli prisoner Baruch Sa’ar, and the wounding and killing of a number of the Israeli force that tried to reach him by infiltrating the place using an ambulance belonging to a humanitarian organization. Which gives us recent practical evidence, not only of the Israeli occupation’s inability to free any prisoner, but also of its increasing loss during its attempts and the perpetuation of its failure in this file.
According to historical and scientific experience, the occupation will not obtain any of its prisoners from the hands of the resistance, except by agreeing to the terms of the resistance, and it is sufficient for Netanyahu and Halevy – in particular – to forget the possibility of achieving any success that would cover up their current and previous failure.
