U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he is engaged in daily discussions to secure the release of hostages held by the Hamas militant group and believes it will happen.
    • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      82·
      1 year ago

      In theory the hostage situation ending should put significant additional pressure on Israel to back off on its retaliation.

      Even if it’s widely agreed that their retaliation is extremely disproportionate, if their public rationale is partly “we’re combating the people who attacked us and took two hundred hostages we need to rescue” - once the hostages are all accounted for the immediacy argument goes out the window and they are left with either admitting the continued efforts are about expanding settlement or stepping things back.

      Honestly if the hostages are rescued and they continue the bombing and forced migration (which I expect the administration would like to), it’d likely spell the end of the extreme right wing in Israel.

      If Hamas were smart, they’d immediately release the hostages still alive unconditionally and return the dead, forcing Netanyahu’s hand in either de-escalating or cutting the BS in what this is really about and facing the consequences internationally and domestically.

      Though that would also mean a more moderate future Israeli government, which isn’t necessarily what Hamas wants or is aligned to their goals, so even though that’s what would be good for the Palestinian civilians, I’m doubtful it will happen and we’ll instead have considerable future bloodshed.

      • CthuluVoIP@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        1 year ago

        I think that Netanyahu’s rhetoric has been clear that the hostages are not the his primary concern. His focus is on eliminating Hamas entirely. I don’t disagree that releasing the hostages needs to happen if there’s to be any hope of a deescalation, but I think it’s a longer road to the conflict ceasing than Hamas doing what they should’ve done as soon as Israel retaliated.

        • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
          32·
          1 year ago

          I mean, I think anyone paying close attention knows that the administration’s real priorities are expansion, though luckily I think there’s enough visibility and blowback that they have hopefully walked that back internally.

          Going after Hamas as an organization is probably better done with a long term and more refined strategy than short term leveling half of Palestine.

          I’m very curious what’s going to happen now that they are raiding the hospital.

          That you had US intelligence publicly agree that it’s a center of operations for Hamas, footage of combatants firing RPGs from near the hospital, then a few hours ago Biden is all like “we’re coming for you hostages” and now there’s a very risky ground operation going into the hospital…

          While I’m too cynical to hope for actual good news, I do think the next few hours will be very enlightening.

      • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.socialEnglish
        22·
        1 year ago

        Hamas doesn’t want to deescalate, I believe. They want Israel’s actions to make not joining the fight untenable for the West Bank, Hezbollah, and other Arab nations.

  • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.eeEnglish
    175·
    1 year ago

    He has been misquoted in the headline.

    He actually said “Hang in there, we’re cumming”, referring to the shareholders in weapon manufacturers watching billions in public funds becoming private profits.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he is engaged in daily discussions to secure the release of hostages held by the Hamas militant group and believes it will happen.

    “Hang in there, we’re coming,” Biden said at the White House, when asked by reporters what his message to family members of hostages was.

    Shortly after his remarks, the White House said Biden’s top adviser on the Middle East, Brett McGurk, is heading to the region for talks with officials in Israel, the West Bank, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other nations.

    Hamas fighters surged across the border from Gaza into Israel on Oct.7, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

    In a White House statement on Sunday, Biden “unequivocally” condemned the holding of hostages by Hamas, including many young children, one of whom is a 3-year old American citizen whose parents were killed by the group on Oct. 7th.

    The families of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip kicked off a five-day march on Tuesday from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to demand the government do more to secure their release.

    The original article contains 420 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 54%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!