On Monday, a Telegram channel belonging to Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, released videos of six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered Saturday, filmed before their death. The Israeli government says the four men and two women were fatally shot by their captors shortly before its troops reached the tunnel in Gaza where they were held.
Qassam has not taken responsibility for their deaths but announced on Telegram that, following a hostage rescue by Israeli troops in June, its personnel guarding the hostages had been given “new instructions” on what to do if the Israeli military approached. It did not provide details regarding these instructions, but Qassam spokesman Abu Obeida said that “Netanyahu’s insistence to free prisoners through military pressure, instead of sealing a deal, means they will be returned to their families in shrouds.”
Intentionally killing hostages is a war crime.
The statement came as anger in Israel at the Israeli government spilled over into mass protests and a rare, impromptu general strike on Monday. In Israel, public expressions of solidarity with the hostages and their families runs deep. Photos of the hostages, including those killed last week, have dotted train stations, government buildings, restaurants, and billboards. Protestors accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sabotaging a US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire and release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to avoid angering his ultra-nationalist coalition partners.
The six, five of whom were apparently civilians, were kidnapped from southern Israel on October 7 in a Hamas-led attack that killed more than 815 civilians and took more than 250 people hostage. Those acts constitute crimes against humanity.
Since October 7, all parties to the conflict have flouted laws of war protections for civilians, sparking the International Criminal Court prosecutor to request arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas leaders. The devastation in Gaza has been unbearable, with more than 40,000 documented fatalities, most of the population displaced, civilian infrastructure decimated and famine-like conditions setting in, a product of the Israeli government’s unlawful attacks, obstruction of aid, and using starvation as a weapon of war.
War crimes by one side do not justify war crimes by another.
Under international humanitarian law, all civilian hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally. Legitimate “new instructions” to Qassam captors would be to obey the laws of war.
