RUTHFULLY YOURS

Nothing better illustrates the dire shortcomings of the flawed ceasefire deal agreed between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas than the terrorist organisation’s despicable mistreatment of the Israeli hostages it has so far agreed to set free.

By far the most grotesque exhibition of Hamas’s contempt for the hostages was their handling of the handover of four Israelis murdered as a result of the October 7, 2023 attacks. Not only was the handover ceremony staged as a propaganda rally for Hamas, it later transpired that one of the slain hostage bodies was not that of Shiri Bibas, as had been agreed in the ceasefire deal. In addition, the Israeli authorities revealed that Bibas’s two sons, Ariel (four years old at the time of his abduction) and Kfir (9 months old), whose bodies were returned at the same time, had been murdered by Hamas, and not killed in Israeli airstrikes as the terrorist group had claimed.

Hamas’s shocking disrespect for the dead hostages prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare that Hamas would “pay the price for this cruel and wicked violation of the agreement.”

Hamas’s latest outrage is in keeping with their willingness to exploit the ceasefire agreement ever since the first Israeli hostages were freed following the implementation of the ceasefire deal last month. With every release, shocking details have emerged of the terrorist group’s unspeakable treatment of the surviving hostages that were seized during the October 7 terrorist attack against Israel, during which 1,200 Israelis were murdered and another 250 taken hostage.

Under the first phase of the ceasefire deal originally negotiated by the Biden administration, but implemented as then President-elect Donald Trump prepared to commence his second term as president, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages held in Gaza in return for Israel releasing hundreds of convicted Palestinian prisoners, many who are imprisoned for committing acts of terrorism.

Fears that Hamas would simply use the ceasefire deal as a propaganda opportunity have now been confirmed both by the terror group’s callous handling of the hostage releases, with many of the Israeli captives being forced to run the gauntlet of a baying Palestinian mob, as well as the chilling details that have emerged of their appalling treatment while in captivity.

In one of the more sickening episodes of Hamas’s carefully-choreographed hostage releases, four young Israeli female captives were paraded through the streets of Gaza in late January before finally being released.

More Israelis were outraged by the gaunt appearance of three hostages released earlier this month after it was clear they were suffering from severe malnutrition and had suffered significant weight loss while in captivity.

A British family member of one of the released Israeli hostages remarked that “It looks as though he’s been to Belsen,” Nazi Germany’s infamous concentration camp. Others denounced the “grotesque spectacle” of the hostage releases.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog posted on X shortly after the hostages’ release: “This is what a crime against humanity looks like!”

Details have also emerged since the release of the last batch of hostages last week of how they were routinely tortured while in captivity, with one of the released captives confirming that he was “tortured during interrogations” by Hamas terrorists and had the scars on his body to show for it.

Hamas’s cynical exploitation of the hostages’ release for its own propaganda purposes, which included presenting one of the hostages with an hourglass menacingly depicting the fate of another hostage who still remains in captivity, has already come close to ending the ceasefire, with Israeli officials accusing Hamas of violating the agreement.

While Israel has reluctantly agreed — for the moment — to continue with the ceasefire process, the prospects of it surviving beyond the first phase look increasingly remote amid deepening Israeli anger both at Hamas’s inhumane treatment of the hostages and its deliberate attempt to exploit the hostages’ release for its own propaganda purposes.

With the first phase of the ceasefire, which began on January 19, due to come to an end in two weeks’ time, the probability of it moving to the next phase looks increasingly unlikely the more the inherent flaws of the original agreement become apparent.

Netanyahu’s reservations about continuing with the ceasefire process have increased after Hamas terrorists regained control of Gaza once the agreement came into force.

Netanyahu has warned he is prepared to resume military operations against Hamas if the terror group does not release all the remaining hostages, warning that the “gates of hell” will be opened if they are not freed.

Netanyahu’s reluctance to persist with the ceasefire will have been boosted, moreover, by recent comments made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio after meeting with the Israeli premier. Rubio declared that Hamas cannot be allowed to continue as either a military or political force in Gaza.

“As long as it stands as a force that can govern or as a force that can administer or as a force that can threaten by use of violence, peace becomes impossible,” Rubio said after meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. “It [Hamas] must be eradicated.”

Rubio’s comments follow Trump’s recently-announced plan for Gaza, in which he called on neighbouring Arab states to allow Gaza’s two million Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to their territory.

Rubio’s open disdain for Hamas, together with the terrorist organisation’s blatant disregard for the well-being of the Israeli hostages, must raise serious questions about whether the ceasefire in its current form is fit for purpose.

Any agreement that allows Hamas to reclaim control over Gaza, while at the same time being allowed to publicly humiliate the hostages when they are finally released, is clearly fundamentally flawed, and should not be allowed to proceed to the next stage.

A permanent ceasefire in Gaza would simply reward Hamas for carrying out the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history.

Ever since Hamas launched its murderous assault on Israel in October 2023, Hamas leaders, together with their supporters in Qatar and Iran, have calculated that any outcome from the Gaza conflict that enables Hamas to remain in control of the enclave counts as a victory.

This agenda for its long-term-client, Hamas, explains why Qatar, which claimed to be a neutral player during the ceasefire negotiations in Doha, has been so keen to oversee a deal that favours Hamas at the expense of Israel’s long-term security. This is the same country, after all, that helped to facilitate the deal with the first Trump administration that resulted in the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan.

In such circumstances, Rubio and the rest of the Trump administration must accept that the ceasefire deal is deeply flawed and must not be allowed to continue.

If Trump and Netanyahu are really serious about achieving lasting peace in Gaza, they must abandon the disastrous ceasefire deal — and especially the well-intended but painfully out-of-his-depth U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who has mindlessly promoted it.

Regrettably, Witkoff is on his way to wrecking Trump’s election triumph by equally disastrous negotiations in Ukraine, where the US is punishing the victim, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and rewarding the aggressor, Russian President Vladimir Putin. If Trump succeeds in torpedoing his month-old presidency, the blame goes to Witkoff.

Trump has graciously allowed Israel to achieve its stated objective to “open the gates of hell” if Hamas does not return all its hostages. Only then can the job of rebuilding Gaza really begin.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph‘s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.