In Gaza City, Israel Looks for a Way to Kill Hamas but Not Its Hostages
The risk is that the Israeli military can’t do both, and security services say they are moving troops into Gaza City cautiously because of the danger.
TEL AVIV—As Israel’s military closes in on Hamas in Gaza City, it confronts a challenge that will shape the coming battle: How to destroy the militant group’s forces without killing the hostages they hold.
The risk is that it can’t do both. Hamas, whose vast tunnel network is still largely intact in Gaza City, has warned it will kill the captives if the military tries to free them by force. The densely packed battlefield also raises the risk of accidental deaths.
Military officials are so concerned about the dangers that they are slowing their assault on the city, the tightly packed urban landscape that Israel’s leaders say is among Hamas’s final strongholds.
Throughout the nearly two-year conflict, Hamas has held the hostages as bargaining chips in cease-fire talks. About half the hostages who have died in Gaza were killed accidentally by the military or executed by Hamas as troops drew near.
Now, with only around 20 believed alive, hostages are squarely at the center of the Israeli military calculus as the new ground offensive in Gaza City begins.
Israel’s security services say they are moving troops into Gaza City cautiously because of the danger to the hostages. Intelligence assessments of hostage locations will determine where military officials direct troops. Officers must certify hostages aren’t near the target before carrying out major strikes.
Those strictures mean the ground offensive in one of Gaza’s last major population centers will likely be a long grind. The military said Tuesday it could take several months to gain control of Gaza City and several more to clear it—a long way from the quick victory hoped for by the Trump administration and Israel’s war-weary citizens.
“This whole operation, if it rolls in fully, there’s a huge risk to the hostages,” said Israel Ziv, a retired Israeli general who previously headed Israel’s Gaza division.
Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that sparked the war. Two rounds of hostage-for-prisoners swaps freed around 147 living hostages.
Israel now thinks there are roughly 20 hostages left alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 others.
The families of hostages have said recently that they are worried their relatives are being used by Hamas as human shields.
Being on the ground in Gaza City will give Israel’s troops a chance to gather real-time intelligence on the hostages’ whereabouts, said Danny Van Buren, a brigadier general in the Israeli reserves. While they are at risk, Hamas has its own vested interest in keeping them alive as a hedge for the militants’ own safety, he said.
Some security analysts think Israel will try to encircle squads of militants who are holding the hostages and cut side deals for their release in exchange for safe passage. Those hypothetical deals would circumvent Hamas’s leadership and shortcut the long-stalled formal hostage negotiations in Doha and Cairo.
“Once Hamas scatters, the military will go into the areas where the hostages are, surround them, and tell the kidnappers to give us the hostages,” said Amir Avivi, a former senior military official who is close to the current government.
The fate of the hostages during the war shows that such a scenario might be optimistic. Similar concerns about the hostages preceded Israel’s 2024 invasion of Rafah, the city on the border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were sheltering. Israel says six hostages were executed in a Rafah tunnel in August of 2024 as troops closed in. Another six likely were shot to death in another tunnel in nearby Khan Younis as airstrikes hit above them.
In all, 42 of the hostages taken alive during Oct. 7 were killed in captivity in Gaza, according to Israel. Of those, at least 20 deaths happened amid Israeli military activity, including executions by their captors, accidental shootings and deaths in bombings.
Some eight hostages are known to have been rescued by Israeli forces from inside Gaza.
Ziv, the former Gaza brigade commander, said it is unrealistic to expect that Israeli troops will be able to negotiate with Hamas militants guarding hostages in real time.
“Realistically, they are covered with armed guards, and we know they have a clear order to shoot them once they see an operation taking place,” he said.
Throughout much of the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has debated with hostage families and a large section of the Israeli public over the risks of putting more military pressure on Hamas. The prime minister argues that doing so is the only way to get the hostages home and that military pressure helped secure the two cease-fire deals that included releasing hostages. Critics have argued that Netanyahu has endangered hostages by delaying deals that could have been reached earlier.
Top Israeli security officials and ministers privately urged Netanyahu not to expand the ground offensive in Gaza City and instead do a temporary cease-fire deal with Hamas that would free some of the remaining hostages, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing Israeli officials. The disagreement erupted recently in a fiery security cabinet meeting, some of the officials said.
Hostages freed from Gaza have told the Journal they feared Israeli rescue missions, as their captors made clear they would execute them in such a scenario. One said a remote-control bomb had been placed in his shelter to be detonated if Israeli forces came to rescue him.
Noa Argamani, who was freed by Israeli forces, said the bombings in Gaza City made her fear for hostages still in captivity, including her boyfriend.
“As a former hostage, I know exactly what these moments feel like,” she said in a post on X. “The booming blasts, the gunfire, the walls shaking, the helplessness and despair that take over.”
Argamani was injured by an Israeli airstrike and was held captive with a hostage who was later killed by an airstrike and another who was executed by Hamas, according to Israeli officials.
Most polls show the majority of the Israeli public thinks the priority should be rescuing the hostages rather than eliminating Hamas.
Avner Golov, a former senior director at Israel’s National Security Council and now vice president of MIND Israel, a security-focused nonprofit based in Tel Aviv, described the Gaza City operation as an unwise risk.
“We are gambling on the lives of the hostages, and there is no victory for Israel if there are no hostages returned,” he said.
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com
TEL AVIV—As Israel’s military closes in on Hamas in Gaza City, it confronts a challenge that will shape the coming battle: How to destroy the militant group’s forces without killing the hostages they hold.
The risk is that it can’t do both. Hamas, whose vast tunnel network is still largely intact in Gaza City, has warned it will kill the captives if the military tries to free them by force. The densely packed battlefield also raises the risk of accidental deaths.
Military officials are so concerned about the dangers that they are slowing their assault on the city, the tightly packed urban landscape that Israel’s leaders say is among Hamas’s final strongholds.
Throughout the nearly two-year conflict, Hamas has held the hostages as bargaining chips in cease-fire talks. About half the hostages who have died in Gaza were killed accidentally by the military or executed by Hamas as troops drew near.
Now, with only around 20 believed alive, hostages are squarely at the center of the Israeli military calculus as the new ground offensive in Gaza City begins.
{{/usCountry}}Now, with only around 20 believed alive, hostages are squarely at the center of the Israeli military calculus as the new ground offensive in Gaza City begins.
{{/usCountry}}Israel’s security services say they are moving troops into Gaza City cautiously because of the danger to the hostages. Intelligence assessments of hostage locations will determine where military officials direct troops. Officers must certify hostages aren’t near the target before carrying out major strikes.
{{/usCountry}}Israel’s security services say they are moving troops into Gaza City cautiously because of the danger to the hostages. Intelligence assessments of hostage locations will determine where military officials direct troops. Officers must certify hostages aren’t near the target before carrying out major strikes.
{{/usCountry}}Those strictures mean the ground offensive in one of Gaza’s last major population centers will likely be a long grind. The military said Tuesday it could take several months to gain control of Gaza City and several more to clear it—a long way from the quick victory hoped for by the Trump administration and Israel’s war-weary citizens.
{{/usCountry}}Those strictures mean the ground offensive in one of Gaza’s last major population centers will likely be a long grind. The military said Tuesday it could take several months to gain control of Gaza City and several more to clear it—a long way from the quick victory hoped for by the Trump administration and Israel’s war-weary citizens.
{{/usCountry}}“This whole operation, if it rolls in fully, there’s a huge risk to the hostages,” said Israel Ziv, a retired Israeli general who previously headed Israel’s Gaza division.
Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that sparked the war. Two rounds of hostage-for-prisoners swaps freed around 147 living hostages.
Israel now thinks there are roughly 20 hostages left alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 others.
The families of hostages have said recently that they are worried their relatives are being used by Hamas as human shields.
Being on the ground in Gaza City will give Israel’s troops a chance to gather real-time intelligence on the hostages’ whereabouts, said Danny Van Buren, a brigadier general in the Israeli reserves. While they are at risk, Hamas has its own vested interest in keeping them alive as a hedge for the militants’ own safety, he said.
Some security analysts think Israel will try to encircle squads of militants who are holding the hostages and cut side deals for their release in exchange for safe passage. Those hypothetical deals would circumvent Hamas’s leadership and shortcut the long-stalled formal hostage negotiations in Doha and Cairo.
“Once Hamas scatters, the military will go into the areas where the hostages are, surround them, and tell the kidnappers to give us the hostages,” said Amir Avivi, a former senior military official who is close to the current government.
The fate of the hostages during the war shows that such a scenario might be optimistic. Similar concerns about the hostages preceded Israel’s 2024 invasion of Rafah, the city on the border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were sheltering. Israel says six hostages were executed in a Rafah tunnel in August of 2024 as troops closed in. Another six likely were shot to death in another tunnel in nearby Khan Younis as airstrikes hit above them.
In all, 42 of the hostages taken alive during Oct. 7 were killed in captivity in Gaza, according to Israel. Of those, at least 20 deaths happened amid Israeli military activity, including executions by their captors, accidental shootings and deaths in bombings.
Some eight hostages are known to have been rescued by Israeli forces from inside Gaza.
Ziv, the former Gaza brigade commander, said it is unrealistic to expect that Israeli troops will be able to negotiate with Hamas militants guarding hostages in real time.
“Realistically, they are covered with armed guards, and we know they have a clear order to shoot them once they see an operation taking place,” he said.
Throughout much of the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has debated with hostage families and a large section of the Israeli public over the risks of putting more military pressure on Hamas. The prime minister argues that doing so is the only way to get the hostages home and that military pressure helped secure the two cease-fire deals that included releasing hostages. Critics have argued that Netanyahu has endangered hostages by delaying deals that could have been reached earlier.
Top Israeli security officials and ministers privately urged Netanyahu not to expand the ground offensive in Gaza City and instead do a temporary cease-fire deal with Hamas that would free some of the remaining hostages, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing Israeli officials. The disagreement erupted recently in a fiery security cabinet meeting, some of the officials said.
Hostages freed from Gaza have told the Journal they feared Israeli rescue missions, as their captors made clear they would execute them in such a scenario. One said a remote-control bomb had been placed in his shelter to be detonated if Israeli forces came to rescue him.
Noa Argamani, who was freed by Israeli forces, said the bombings in Gaza City made her fear for hostages still in captivity, including her boyfriend.
“As a former hostage, I know exactly what these moments feel like,” she said in a post on X. “The booming blasts, the gunfire, the walls shaking, the helplessness and despair that take over.”
Argamani was injured by an Israeli airstrike and was held captive with a hostage who was later killed by an airstrike and another who was executed by Hamas, according to Israeli officials.
Most polls show the majority of the Israeli public thinks the priority should be rescuing the hostages rather than eliminating Hamas.
Avner Golov, a former senior director at Israel’s National Security Council and now vice president of MIND Israel, a security-focused nonprofit based in Tel Aviv, described the Gaza City operation as an unwise risk.
“We are gambling on the lives of the hostages, and there is no victory for Israel if there are no hostages returned,” he said.
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com
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