Viewers watched the images of the hostages' release broadcast live from Gaza with bated breath. On the ruins of the city center, Hamas' cynical staging began in chaos in front of the world's cameras. Armed and masked terrorists, wearing keffiyehs around their necks and green headbands, formed a cordon to "ensure security." Banners brandished victorious slogans, a placard displayed "Nazi Zionism oppresses the Palestinian people." An abject and revolting trivialization of the Holocaust at the very moment when heads of state and government were commemorating the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In Gaza, the filthy beast raises its head. Yesterday's classic antisemitism against the Jews is applied to the letter by Palestinian barbarians. In the process, the Red Cross vehicles arrive and time suddenly stops... Four young Israeli female soldiers appear. They are smiling, courageous, holding hands... and they climb with pride and elegance onto the podium. After 477 days of inhuman detention, here they are freed, their faces radiant, triumphant.
They symbolize the victory of a people who have cultivated for millennia the values of freedom, human life, faith in a just cause, a legitimate fight against terrorists who teach hatred of Jews, the cult of death and religious fanaticism.
On Oct. 7, 2023, they were brutally kidnapped, in their sleep, and dragged bloodied to Gaza. Despite the atrocious conditions endured for more than 15 months in the labyrinths of Hamas tunnels, they still held out hope, knowing full well that the IDF would use all means to free them, sooner or later. This is the difference between the vocation of a generous and united people, one that never abandons a refugee or a detainee in distress, and bloodthirsty terrorist leaders who for decades have plunged their people into desolation and misery.
The agreement signed with Hamas is unfortunately not yet complete until all the hostages, alive or dead, have returned to Israel. The Islamist leaders have tried to prove through their grotesque staging that they have not lost the war, that they are still resisting the Israeli occupation and that they have managed to free hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons. Therefore, capable of negotiating on equal terms with foreign representatives as a government of an independent state, to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority located in Ramallah. It is also astonishing that the Red Cross – which has made no effort to visit the hostages during their entire detention – allows Hamas terrorists to dictate the agenda.
In the face of Hamas' deception and the future negotiations that promise to be complex and difficult also with regard to Lebanon, we hope that the new American administration will support the Israeli position and prove to the entire world that President Trump is a sincere friend of the Jewish state and that he always implements his promises.
