2 Deadly Reasons Why Sinwar Cannot Make a Hostage Deal

The man who plotted the Oct. 7 terror attacks is fighting for his life. His days are numbered.

Aug 31, 2024

Six hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 who were murdered in the Gaza Strip. Their bodies were recovered by the IDF in a tunnel in Khan Yunis on Aug. 20, 2024. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel.

This is the seventh installment in a new series at God of the Desert Books, Hostage Liberation News, which will focus exclusively on new developments and efforts in the fight to ensure the release of the human beings kidnapped by the Islamist terror group Hamas for use as human shields.

Please see my previous writings on this subject, linked at the bottom of this post. You can also read the 90 installments of the Antisemitism and Culture and Axis of Genocide series here. See also the first installment in the new Academic Inferno series here.

It has been two weeks since our last installment, which is certainly an improvement on the previous month-long gaps of the updates before then. We’ll start with a few news updates of notable events since then before focusing on our primary topic today of further news explaining the continued elusiveness of a hostages-for-ceasefire deal.

First, on August 20, the IDF announced the recovery of the remains of six hostages, those pictured above: Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, Yagev Buchshtav, Chaim Peri and Alex Dancyg.

Second, on Monday, August 26, the Daily Express newspaper in the UK reported that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is on the run, with the IDF having been only minutes away from apprehending him. He has also reportedly escaped his tunnel hiding places by impersonating a woman. I am skeptical of this latter claim.

“As we have discovered through other elimination operations, Sinwar will not be sitting in underground tunnels or special underground zones for more than 24 to 36 hours at a time,” Shalom Ben Hanan, a former Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) official who has worked on the hunt for Sinwar, said.

“As we have discovered through other elimination operations, Sinwar will not be sitting in underground tunnels or special underground zones for more than 24 to 36 hours at a time,” Ben Hanan added.
“He knows we can find such underground locations through advanced technology. And he knows if a mistake is made or we find sources to tell us where he is, he needs to be on the move—to avoid that mistake becoming fatal for him,” he said.

Third, on Tuesday, August 27, the IDF announced the rescue of hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52.

Why Yahya Sinwar is Trapped and Doomed

On Wednesday, August 28, The Jewish Chronicle published the most compelling, jaw-dropping analysis of the hostage negotiations problems that I’ve yet read. This is horrifying:

According to confidential intelligence sources, Hamas is currently only holding 20 hostages and they are all in handcuffs, being used as human shields to protect Sinwar.
Israel has had chances to kill Sinwar, but chose not to do so because of the potential deaths of hostages and Palestinian civilians.
The other hostages are being held by other smaller terrorist groups, specifically Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Mujahideen Brigades, the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades
Sinwar is not in control of whether these other, small groups release the hostages.
These groups are disagreeing with Sinwar since he wants Hamas’s prisoners released as a priority in the deal while they want their own people released.
This has reportedly fueled considerations by these groups to take out Sinwar themselves.
These groups also insist that no compromise be made with Israel and that “any deal includes the release of all terrorists from Israeli jails, including 1,236 murderers who have been sentenced to life imprisonment.”

On March 9, I wrote this article in “The Axis of Genocide” series:

Hamas Says It Does Not Know Where the Hostages Are Or Who Is Alive

David Swindle 🟦

Mar 9

Hamas Says It Does Not Know Where the Hostages Are Or Who Is Alive

This is the 21st installment of the new “Axis of Genocide” series at this Zionist Substack, the successor to the “Antisemitism and …

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At the time there was reason for skepticism with Hamas’s claim that they did not know the fate of all the hostages. After all, they’re murderers and thus by definition nothing they say can be trusted at face value.

However, this sounded very credible and believable to me based on what we already knew about how the hostages were taken and what was believed about how they were being held diffusely.

It made perfect sense that Hamas would not have the capability to know the status of all the hostages at any given time.

Thus, likewise, even though this Jewish Chronicle article is not as well sourced as I’d like—I deeply despise the use of anonymous sources—this too seems credible. It makes a whole lot of sense that Sinwar cannot make a deal even if he wanted to do so because:

1. He needs his hellish ring of 20 hostages to keep Israel from assassinating him.

2. He does not have control over how many of the hostages could potentially be released in a deal. Those who do are on the verge of killing him themselves.

Thus, as should have been clear for everyone paying attention for awhile now: the hostages who are still alive will only be recovered through continued military pressure on Sinwar and the other Islamist terror groups supporting him in Gaza. Continued “negotiations” remain little more than theatrics in the public relations war.