
Israelis and global media are rejoicing that the hostages will be freed this Sunday. As far as they are concerned, there are 33 hostages scheduled to gain their freedom. All of them Israeli. But that’s not the case. Thirty times as many Palestinian hostages (1,000 or 1,650 according to Al Jazeera) will be released as well. The Israeli justice ministry has compiled a list of those to be freed.
Among them will be Dirar Abusisi. In 2011, I broke the story of an extraordinary rendition of Dirar, in Ukraine by the Mossad with the collaboration of Ukrainian security services. He was kidnapped, drugged, placed in a shipping container and secretly returned to Israel & charged (falsely) as Hamas’ chief rocket engineer.
In Gaza, he had been a civil engineer running its power plant. When Hamas tried to recruit him, he tried to escape to Ukraine, where his wife’s family lived.
Hamas sought revenge against him by leaking to Israeli intelligence that he was the mastermind behind Gilad Shalit’s kidnapping. That’s why the Mossad went to such lengths to kidnap him. A Ukrainian news source reported in late February that the Mossad kidnapped him. A few days later, an Israeli source told me what happened. A gag order prohibited Israeli media from reporting Dirar’s name. That’s why I did.
He refused to cop a plea and rotted in prison for four years before facing ill health, he finally broke down and accepted a 21-year sentence. I’ve waited eagerly before every prior prisoner exchange to see if he would be freed. He wasn’t…until now. He is on the list of 1,000 Palestinian hostages to be released (hopefully, Sunday). He served 13 years of his sentence. I don’t know if his wife, Veronika and their children are well. I hope they are.
I have written scores of blog posts about Dirar and his plight over the past 14 years. I’ve been waiting for this day for so long!
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You wouldn’t know much about the Palestinian hostages from the media coverage. Haaretz, for example, published a 37 paragraph story of which only the last two paragraphs reported on the Palestinian reaction to to the impending release. And Haaretz is considered the “most liberal” of Israel’s mainstream media.
According to an Israeli security source, among the Israeli hostages who will remain in captivity, approximately ten are alive. Presumably, the remaining approximately 55 are deceased. It’s likely that many of them were killed not by their captors, but by the IDF during its assault on Gaza. In some cases, the army has admitted it killed its own hostages. Some were collateral damage killed during rescue missions. Some were killed by the army even though they begged for their lives in Hebrew waving a white flag. Some were killed by gas in a tunnel where they were held, during operations targeting the Hamas commander holding them.
Erasing Palestinian hostages

The obsessive media focus on Israeli “victims” is a deliberate erasure of Palestinian suffering. It transforms the perpetrators into the victims; and the victims into the perpetrators. Who are the victims? 100 hostages or 10,000 Palestinian hostages in Israeli prisons, many not even charged with a crime (under administrative detention). Who are the victims? The 1,200 Israelis killed on 10/7 (several hundred killed by the IDF under the Hannibal Directive); or the [projected] 300,000 Gazans murdered by the IDF.
Public health experts estimate that 70,000 have been murdered in hostilities, while The Lancet projected that approximately (conservatively) three victims die of indirect causes in such conflicts for every known death.

The world’s tunnel vision regarding the Israeli hostages erases the joy Palestinians will experience when their own hostages come home. It also expunges an extraordinary achievement for Hamas, despite the body blows it absorbed during 15 months of Israel genocide. Despite the assassination of its top leaders and over nearly three-quarters of its fighting force, it compelled Israel to free more prisoners than any exchange since Gilad Shalit’s in 2011.
Netanyahu’s promise that Hamas would never govern Gaza again also rings hollow. Since the Israeli leader has no post-war plan, there is no party that has accepted responsibility for governance. Hamas is it by default.
The US is proposing that UAE security forces do so. But it is highly unlikely Palestinians would accept foreigners to occupy and rule over them. The US and Israel have refused to propose that the Palestinian Authority take control. It remains the only other Palestinian entity which could conceivably do so. Even that is doubtful considering how hated it is by Palestinians.
Barring anyone else, Hamas is the only body which can rule Gaza. It is not going anywhere. It remains. By a process of elimination, it will take over–unless of course Israel intends to occupy Gaza permanently. That is not a prospect Netanyahu has recognized, and not something the Israeli public will want.
Bibi lost: let us count the ways
The IDF occupied southern Lebanon for nearly two decades. Hundreds of soldiers were killed by Hezbollah. There too, Israel failed to achieve its strategic objectives. Hezbollah took over the south after Israel withdrew with its tail between its legs. Israelis were relieved when the troops came home. Despite Israel’s recent assassinations of its leaders, Hezbollah remains a powerful enemy. There will be no political constituency for permanent occupation of Gaza.
Also lost in this coverage are the other losses Israel has suffered. 800 IDF soldiers were killed by Hamas (400 in combat after 10/7). 100 more captured on 10/7 and held as prisoners. Despite Netanyahu’s claim that Israel would eliminate Hamas and free all the hostages (without any release of Palestinians), neither happened. Hamas may be smaller and weaker than it was, but it has new leadership and, as Antony Blinken said in a speech this week, has replenished its ranks. For every fighter lost, he said, another new one has been recruited.
An Israeli security source confirms that the IDF killed about 15,000 Palestinian resistance fighters. He confirms they have been replaced by almost as many new teenage recruits. However, they are untrained, without the knowledge or skills of those they replace. Nonetheless, Hamas retains the capacity to inflict serious damage: evidence of this is last week’s toll of 15 IDF soldiers killed.
Earlier in the fighting, Israel had proposed expelling all or most Palestinians from Gaza. It suggested shipping them off to Egypt, which said “no thanks.” Prominent figures such as Donald Trump and Jared Kushner touted Gaza’s “waterfront property” as a tremendous real estate opportunity: villas on the beaches for the wealthy. Israeli settler group began “selling” property they didn’t own.
Recently, Israel announced that the most effective UN aid agency in Gaza and the West Bank, UNWRA, would cease operation, for all intents and purposes. It proposed shifting its responsibilities to WHO or the World Food Programme, neither of which are equipped to replace UNWRA. At the end of the month, the NGO will no longer be capable of providing aid to Palestinian refugees. The responsibility will then fall on Israel to do so, a prospect it will refuse. Then, not only will Gazans continue to die of starvation, West Bank Palestinians, who receive most of their food aid through the UN, will also face malnutrition. This will mark yet another defeat in Israel’s global propaganda war. A new front in the genocide against Palestine.
Netanyahu achieved none of the benchmarks he set for Israel. Now, his right-wing extremist coalition partners are up in arms. They believed Netanyahu’s commitments to exterminate Hamas. Now, they view the release of even a single Palestinian hostage as a defeat. They intend to vote against the hostage deal, though they will not bolt the government. If they did, it would topple the ruling coalition and lead to new elections.
Polls show they parties in the government would lose nearly 20 seats and both Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir’s parties would be crushed: Ben Gvir would lose three of his nine seats, and Smotrich would be eliminated altogether. Though both detest Netanyahu’s deal, they have no choice but to remain in government.
However, this fissure makes the coalition increasingly unstable. History shows that such political marriages inevitably break up. The only question is how long it will take for it to happen.
The polls also indicate that the Opposition has 60 seats, a bare majority. The Palestinian parties are slated for ten seats. Their votes would be needed to maintain stability. But the Opposition is unlikely to include them in its coalition. Its refusal to do so would make any coalition unstable as well. Naftali Bennett, who led the last non-Likud government, went home after only a year as prime minister.
Thank you Richard for your tremendous contribution for so many years. 🙏🏽
Holocaust Day – Gaza Genocide Halted
Romi Conon (24) – Emily Damari (28) – Doron Steinbrecher (31)
First three Israeli women released from captivity … ceasefire has begun hours late. Most likely nearly 70,000 Gazans were killed in most horrific way by the IDF.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ckg0znng8x2t?post=asset%3A1404bd36-a850-4e0d-9d32-8961b52f1686
Ben Gvir has resigned.
Just as the 10/7 attack changed the Israel-Palestine conflict … so today after 15 months of unrelentless bombing of 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza has not brought a resolution or peace closer … to the contrary … there are new opportunities for the region … only if leaders decide to work together for a Palestinian State. The Western world has changed … PMO’s Hasbara has failed Bibi. Joe is gone.
The pause in massacrers could give the opportunity to count the real amount of dead and wounded in Gaza by UN organisations. Gaza has excellent population registers, which have made Israel’s control function so exact in the genocide they perform. They knew where everybody lived and what he/she is/was. Counting and identifying the now living and comparing the results to the situation before the war started could be rather easily and fast organized and with minimal costs, when help is distributed. The question is that would Israel and USA allow that official count to be performed. Not likely = never.
In Holocaust the figure 6 million appeared already before the real events were still in future. So is also in Zionists interest keep the figure 46 thousand as the official Gaza “fact”. Doubting the 6 million figure is even a crime in some countries. In Gaza’s case the real fact could be now achieved. Could Israel and USA bear the results, if the real amount of dead is 300,000 – 400,000? Maybe USA could, but certainly not Israel. Johan Galtung, the very famous peace researcher, had counted already before Iraq operation, that the US operations after WW2 had caused the premature death of over 20 million people. Now in 2025 we could add a couple of millions to that figure (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine etc + Gaza).
@ Simohurtta: As you know, I value your long-time reading and commenting here.
But please do not enter into issues concerning doubts about how many Jews died in the Holocaust. It’s not a debate/discussion I want here.
Gaza “real estate”
My faint hope and analysis …
Lebanon will be rebuild under Sunni guidance of Saudi Arabia … see Rafik Hariri.
https://exhibits-lb.stanford.edu/virtual-tribunals/catalog.html?f%5Btopic_facet%5D%5B%5D=Murder&per_page=24&sort=pub_year_isi+desc%2C+title_sort+asc&view=list
New Syria will be “colonized” by a consortium of Türkiye military support and Qatari funding … the MB option. The gas fields of Qatar will have a pipeline constructed to the Mediterranean Sea.
Gaza will be rebuild under leadership of a GCC consortium with security guarantees from the U.S. and a handful of allied states. A State of Palestine will be on the negotiating table for peace and security.
UAE can offer no military support as they only have a fighting force of mercenaries (still led by Erik Prince?)
Richard, I really value your posts for the insights and inside information they provide, so it concerns me when a figure you cite is different from that quoted in other sources I tend to trust. You refer to “the 1,200 Israelis killed on 10/7”, but both Haaretz and Al Jazeera (among others) agree on the figure of 1,139 dead, of whom 71 were foreign nationals – giving a total of 1,068 Israelis killed. Twelve hundred is a suspiciously round number – can you explain the discrepancy?
@ Huw: Here is my full phrasing:
It’s critical to note that a significant number of the Israeli dead were killed by Israeli forces. So in that sense 1,200 is only useful as a placeholder figure. It doesn’t tell the full story of what happened, which is why I added the reference to Hannibal.