Israeli hostages, a powerful “bargaining chip” for Hamas

Hamas is accustomed to taking hostages as a means of pressure to obtain the release of Palestinian detainees. The Islamic organization in power in the Gaza Strip boasts of having used this method again on Saturday by kidnapping 35 Israeli civilians and soldiers, hoping to repeat the success achieved in June 2011. At the time the Jewish state had released 1,027 detainees in exchange for the Franco-Israeli soldier, Sergeant Gilad Shalit, detained in the Gaza Strip.

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This fragile-looking soldier was kidnapped in 2006 near his tank, near a crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip. It then took five years of bitter bargaining, delaying tactics and manipulation to reach an agreement. Hamas had used this card to the fullest by releasing poignant videos of the soldier who had become an “unhappy hero” despite himself. Very emaciated, Gilad Shalit was welcomed at the end of his ordeal by Benjamin Netanyahu, already prime minister at the time.

Even before Saturday's unprecedented infiltration into southern Israel, Hamas already had a "bargaining chip." Islamists have for years been demanding the release of detainees in exchange for the return of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Shaul Oron, killed during an operation in 2014 in the Gaza Strip. Two other Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu of Ethiopian origin and the other, Hisham Al-Sayed a Bedouin, apparently suffering from psychological problems, were arrested respectively in 2014 and 2015 by Hamas after having infiltrated for reasons that remain unclear in the Gaza Strip. In this case too, Hamas demands compensation to release them. But the negotiations drag on.

The only certainty: Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, will have to take into account the presence of hostages in Gaza at one point or another, once the first reprisals have been launched. Already a young woman in tears, living in one of the towns near the Gaza Strip invaded by Islamist fighters, has stirred public opinion by explaining to "12", a television channel, that she had recognized his father among the photos of kidnapped Israelis proudly distributed by Hamas on social networks. The army, in particular the military censor, initially refused to confirm these kidnappings so as not to sow panic.

The Islamists, for their part, are actively preparing to play on this hypersensitive string to obtain the release of as many prisoners as possible. Benyamin Netanyahu will undergo pressure from families even more intense than that to which he is subject in the case of Gilad Shalit, before finally giving in to the diktat of Hamas.

It currently has a “pool” of around 4,500 Palestinian detainees convicted, currently on trial or in administrative detention for “terrorist activities”. The release of a large contingent of detainees, an essential issue for the Palestinian population, would certainly give a huge boost to the popularity of Hamas, both in the Gaza Strip, but also in the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, the great rival of the Islamists, is breaking records for unpopularity.