Hamas can’t even keep its word for the most simple request: No ceremonies.
It’s really not that hard. Release the hostages quietly. Let them go home without any noise around them.
But even that, Hamas can’t do.
The terror group, armed and in uniform, made phone calls to the family members of the hostages and told the families: Publish This. Make this known.
Yes, it is an incredible feeling for the families to speak with their children after two agonizing years of pain. But, to see a masked Hamas gunman next to their child, is traumatic. According to N12, one family refused to take such a call.
Their child was grabbed from their home or from a music festival by these masked Hamas gunmen. And now, as they are being released, masked Hamas gunmen cannot give up their last moments to inflict additional psychological trauma on the hostages and their families.
In the tense and emotionally charged context of the hostage release, the act of releasing the captives has taken on a disgusting performative dimension. Hamas has staged what can be described as “ceremonial” gestures by orchestrating phone and video calls between hostages and their families. These moments, while deeply meaningful to loved ones, serve multiple strategic and psychological purposes beyond humanitarian relief.
By staging these calls, Hamas positions itself as a gatekeeper of communication until the last moment. Such gestures may also serve to preempt criticism or international pressure, because by showing hostages alive and smiling as they make contact for the first time in 2 years with their family, Hamas can claim a degree of humane treatment, even if their brutality is more than clear.
These calls have been shared publicly, turning private moments into public theater.
While there were no public ceremonies like in the past when hostages were released, you cannot deny that this is the group’s way to show that they are still in control of the hostages-until the last moment. Not the Red Cross who will just act as glorified Uber drivers, not the IDF that has kept its word and withdrawn its troops.
It is Hamas that is still in control.
But the hostages are now Former Hostages. They will soon not need to worry about those masked gunmen. They are free now.