IDF knows that hostages at risk in event of new, harsher Gaza invasion

There is a debate about whether military force saved or led Hamas to kill more hostages from after November 2023 until the January 19 ceasefire and hostage deal.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB MARCH 12, 2025 19:20

IDF soldiers operating in the West Bank during overnight operations, March 11, 2025 (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

IDF sources have quietly told The Jerusalem Post what Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich said out loud earlier this week, though much of the rest of the government has not admitted the point: that a return to war in Gaza, especially the expected more aggressive return, could and likely will endanger the remaining 59 hostages.

There is no question that military force helped bring back around 80 Israeli hostages from Hamas in November 2023.

There is a debate about whether military force saved or led Hamas to kill more hostages from after that point and after summer 2024 until the January 19 ceasefire and hostage deal.

On the one hand, eight hostages were physically rescued in four heroic operations, and another 25 were returned alive during the hostage deal, and some dozens of bodies were returned in a mix of operations and during the hostage deal.

On the other hand, since November 2023, there have been at least three incidents where multiple hostages were killed mistakenly by the IDF or by Hamas in response to awareness that the IDF was close by and might rescue the hostages, and estimates are there were many more.

An illustrative image of IDF soldiers. (credit: FLASH90)

The IDF has said clearly throughout the war that it will not attack a spot where it knows for sure a hostage is being held, and sources indicate that there is no change in policy on that, even for future operations.

A problem will be that the new Gaza invasion plans discussed by media commentators include a rapid conquest of all parts of Gaza as opposed to a gradual staged invasion as in late 2023- mid-2024.

This will inevitably make it much more difficult for the IDF to track where the hostages are and where Hamas is moving them in real-time as over two million Palestinians may start moving around at the same time.

Of course, the IDF will still do everything it can to avoid hitting the hostages, but in a faster operation with so many Palestinians moving at the same time, it will be comparatively far harder to do so.

This means that the decision to return to war in Gaza and more aggressively will expose what has been a growing recognition that additional military force against Hamas is less about rescuing hostages and more about trying to finish Hamas off in Gaza to end the future threat they pose.

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According to Smotrich, the calculation here is that more Israeli lives will be saved from Hamas in the future compared to the remaining 22-24 still living hostages whose lives may be lost.

IDF sources would also agree to the implication that taking risks with the hostages lives at this point, when Hamas is holding “only” 22-24 living hostages, may be more digestible than on January 19 when it was holding around 50 living hostages - let alone than in November 2023 when it was holding 250 hostages, and the picture of how many were alive was far more unclear.

The truth is that this calculation – more military force to eliminate Hamas’s military power even with the potential to endanger some of the hostages – was a calculation that the IDF and the government were making for much of the war.

Did military force save the hostages?

Sometimes, military force probably saved hostages, and sometimes, it probably endangered them.

The factors which are different now which are allowing Smotrich and some IDF sources to acknowledge this calculation more clearly are the fact that “only” 10% of the original 250 hostages are currently left alive in Gaza and that there have been extensive efforts to try to get Hamas to agree to immunity in exchange for expulsion which seem to have reached a dead end.

In other words, there could still be some deals between Israel and Hamas to return some hostages, but if the government decides that it cannot allow Hamas to remain in Gaza as a military force, even if Hamas gives up formal political control, at some point, there will be an invasion.

In turn, at some point, the remaining live hostages will face increased danger from the renewed invasion.

Even if the government is still maintaining that a renewed invasion and saving the hostages are entirely consistent goals, an increasing number of voices are admitting the contradiction.