How will they be released this time? As Israel awaits the return of the next hostages, nobody knows what to expect. When Emily Damari, Romi Goren and Doron Steinbrecher were freed a fortnight ago, they were forced to run the gauntlet of a baying crowd, with jihadis swarming onto the roofs of Red Cross vehicles in a show of force. The hostages were then given “goodie bags”. Jerusalem reacted furiously to this perverse spectacle, which had been cynically orchestrated by Hamas.
The following week, when Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag were released, the terrorists took a different tack. This time, the captives were dressed in faux military fatigues – they had been kidnapped in their pyjamas – and paraded onstage. A grotesque signing ceremony was then conducted, with Red Cross officials shamefully playing along. Afterwards, the hostages said that they had tried to keep cheerful while on public display to show they were “not fazed” and that “we were stronger than them”.
What else could they do? How could they be expected to make a considered judgment under such pressure, while subjected to such trauma and disorientation? This was an impossible position. After being beaten, abused, kidnapped from their beds and subjected to 477 days in captivity, they were suddenly cleaned up and forced to face a cheering crowd for the benefit of Hamas propagandists. It’s astonishing that they had even managed to survive, let alone muster a smile.
This was just the latest expression of Hamas’ psychological warfare. A grotesque video released by the jihadi group showed the women thanking their captors in Arabic before being ushered onto the stage by masked jihadis, some of whom brandished Israeli-made Tavor rifles. There were many purposes to this set-piece, including: showing the people of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority and the international community that despite heavy losses, the jihadis remained in control; appealing to instincts of Western progressives by crafting an image of Hamas that they could, disgracefully enough, get behind; and making a public mockery of Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge of “total victory”. But most of all, it was intended to twist the knife in Israel’s heart.
The depravity of Hamas seems to always find its way to new depths. There is something appalling about being forced to acknowledge that a group which revels so deliriously in medieval savagery is also capable of such sophistication in the pursuit of mental torture. Not just sophistication; creativity. Hamas has now confirmed that eight of the remaining captives to be released in phase one are dead but has not provided their names. This has dealt yet another heavy blow to the hostage families, who have been left in even more anguished limbo. How they manage to sleep at all is anybody’s guess.
This sick game has become all too familiar. In November, Hamas spread a rumour that Danielle Gilboa – one of the female soldiers released last week – was dead. That same month, Palestinian Islamic Jihad gave the same treatment to 77-year-old kindergarten teacher Hannah Katzir, claiming that she had died “from medical complications” after Israel had “rejected” their offer to release her on humanitarian grounds. Katzir was freed, alive, just weeks later (though she later passed away after failing to recover from her time in captivity).
Aviva Siegel, who was held for more than 50 days in Gaza, told the Wall Street Journal how she was forced to perform in a propaganda clip while in captivity. A jihadi film crew – including Hebrew speakers – made her rehearse until she was pitch-perfect. “I always forgot something, so I had to say it again and again,” she said. Other videos were more overtly sadistic. In a clip apparently of Yarden Bibas, husband to Shiri and father of the flame-haired Kfir and Ariel, whose fate remains unknown, he is seen reacting to being told they had died. “Bring my wife and my children back home,” he sobs. “Please, I’m begging.”
The psychological manipulation is both highly accomplished and profoundly cruel. It is of a piece with the way in which the terrorists have managed to coax the Western media into the very palms of their hands. In a video of an Israeli interrogation of Tarek Abu Shaluf, a captured Islamic Jihad spokesman, he revealed how journalists have become complicit in this misinformation campaign. “The international media differs from the Arab ones,” he said. “They focus on humanitarian issues. We don’t speak to them in the language of violence, destruction and revenge.”
As the neuropsychologist Dr Orli Peter pointed out in these pages last year, while the West is saturated with “emotional empathy”, allowing us to easily feel the feelings of others, Hamas has a surfeit of “cognitive empathy”, meaning that they hold a coldblooded understanding of what makes us tick. When applying this knowledge to the West, they are able to harness our humanitarian passions by curating tableaux of human suffering, triggering an emotional response that overrides our reason. As a result, many in the democracies emerge in support of the most debased terror group on Earth.
Israelis, however, are made of different stuff. Although, as we have seen, Hamas understands very well how to twist the psychological knife in the Jewish heart, they have not yet discovered a way to fracture their enemy’s remarkable resilience. The smiles and upraised fists of the young women on that stage speak for themselves. Israel is unbreakable. That is why, despite the ocean of anguish, Am Yisrael is once again emerging victorious.
