From Raids to Ransom: Israel's Hostage Strategy Empowers Hamas

The Evolution of Israel's Hostage Policy

When nearly 6,000 terrorists from Hamas and other Gaza-based groups invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, they came not only to kill but to capture. By nightfall, they had dragged 251 people back to the Gaza Strip: soldiers from their bases, mothers, toddlers, and pensioners from their saferooms, even Thai farmhands. This large-scale kidnapping was a deliberate strategy, as explained by Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University. It was a proven strategy, one that had forced Israel to make major concessions in the past, primarily the release of hardened terrorists.

Yahya Sinwar, the architect of October 7, learned this firsthand when he walked free from prison in 2011 as part of a deal that saw 1,027 terrorists traded for captured soldier Gilad Shalit. In 1985, Sinwar’s mentor and Hamas founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, also gained freedom through a similar exchange, with Israel trading him and 1,150 other security prisoners for three captured IDF soldiers.

Jerusalem’s commitment to returning its captives has been a constant throughout the Jewish state’s history. Prime ministers, IDF veterans, hostage families, and religious scholars have all emphasized this value. However, how Israel frees its hostages has evolved over time, from straightforward prisoner exchanges to dramatic rescues and, more recently, lopsided swaps that set hundreds of terrorists free.

Now, for nearly two years, Israel has found itself in its largest and most complex hostage crisis yet. To secure the release of the vast majority of the hostages taken on October 7, Israel agreed to multiple deals that paused its campaign against Hamas and freed thousands of prisoners, including those with blood on their hands. Many believe Israel will have to do so again to get the remaining captives home.

Hamas’s leaders predicted, correctly, that Israel would pay the price, according to multiple analysts. The Israeli public also seemed to take as a given that dozens of prisoners would be released for every hostage. In the two-month ceasefire that began in January, Israel released almost 2,000 terrorists and other prisoners in exchange for 30 living hostages and the bodies of eight more.

Early Exchanges and the Foundations of Policy

Israel’s lopsided trades began in the 1950s on the battlefield, when thousands of Arab prisoners of war were swapped for small groups of Israeli soldiers. After the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Israel traded 5,500 Egyptians for four Israelis. Following the 1967 Six Day War, nearly 7,000 Arab POWs were released for 15 captured Israelis, and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, some 8,000 Arabs were released for nearly 300 Israelis.

Though lopsided due to the stunning success of IDF ground operations, these swaps were relatively straightforward state-to-state arrangements governed by the conventions of international warfare. According to Noa Lazimi, an international relations expert, “this was largely due to Israel’s determination to bring conflicts to a close and accelerate the return of its captives — an imperative rooted in a formative value of the Jewish national ethos.”

Colonel (Res.) Doron Hadar, commander of the IDF’s General Staff Negotiation Unit, acknowledged this value as a core principle: “Israel’s approach to hostages stands on two pillars: The Jewish value of redeeming captives, and every soldier’s belief that Israel will bring them home.” The early prisoner swaps reflected this ethos and helped cement in the public mind a perceived “equation of sorts,” namely that the return of an Israeli soldier was worth the release of many enemy prisoners.

Force Comes First: The Rabin Doctrine

Israel’s determination to bring back all its captives did not go unnoticed by its enemies. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the country faced a wave of Palestinian terrorism characterized by both mass-casualty attacks and barricaded hostage situations. Armed Palestinian secular nationalist groups, including Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), increasingly turned to such tactics, hoping to belittle Israel and force concessions.

In 1968, the PFLP managed the only successful hijacking of an El Al plane in history, diverting a carrier to Algeria and holding its crew plus the male Jewish passengers as hostages. Israel ultimately freed 16 convicted terrorists in exchange for the passengers, but waited three weeks before doing so, disguising the concession as a goodwill gesture to Algeria.

Throughout the 1970s, Israel adopted a stricter stance against negotiating with terrorists, led primarily by then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. This hardline policy, later known as the “Rabin Doctrine,” emphasized rescue operations over negotiations, even at the risk of losing Israeli lives. The defining moment of this doctrine came in the 1976 Entebbe operation, when Israeli commandos rescued more than 100 hostages held in Uganda.

A Slippery Slope

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Palestinian terror groups began spiriting Israeli hostages deep into enemy territory, making successful commando raids extremely risky. Without the option of implementing the Rabin Doctrine’s military rescue option, Israel found itself negotiating for the release of hostages. Israeli decision-makers found themselves on a slippery slope.

A turning point came in 1978, when Israeli reservist Avraham Amram was captured by the PFLP and held in Lebanon for 340 days. Tortured and suicidal in captivity, Amram was eventually freed through a Red Cross-mediated exchange for 76 Palestinian security prisoners. From that point on, Israel routinely released dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of prisoners in exchange for small numbers of Israeli captives.

The Shalit Deal and Its Consequences

The trend of lopsided prisoner exchanges persisted, culminating in the 2011 Shalit deal, where Israel released 1,027 terrorists in exchange for captured soldier Gilad Shalit. Despite criticism and concerns about the long-term consequences, the public sympathized with the difficulty of decision-makers in hostage crises.

Following years of public campaigning by Shalit’s family and crowds of supporters, the 25-year-old soldier was freed in exchange for 1,027 terrorists, including Sinwar and over 300 others serving life terms. About half the prisoners were collectively responsible for terrorist attacks in which 569 Israelis were murdered.

October 7 and the Current Crisis

The lengths Israel will go to free its hostages and the motivation of Hamas to empty Israel’s jail cells continue to play off one another. One of the terror group’s main goals on October 7 was to capture soldiers and civilians to get back prisoners. After October 7, calls to revive the spirit of the Shamgar Commission for hostage policy reform resurfaced for some activists.

Despite resistance from defense officials, Netanyahu defended the Shalit deal at the time of its approval, citing the national memory of Ron Arad and the lifelong anguish of the lost pilot’s mother. He stated, “I thought of Gilad and the five years that he spent rotting away in a Hamas cell. I did not want his fate to be that of Ron Arad.”

The Future of Hostage Policy

Now, with 50 hostages still in Gaza — including 20 believed to be alive and the remains of a soldier taken in 2014 — Netanyahu must decide again, but with far more than a single captured soldier on the line. Surveys show the dominant public demand is to bring everyone home, not only by freeing more terrorists but by potentially stopping the war without a decisive defeat of Hamas.

For many, the established practice of returning hostages even at great cost must prevail, especially in light of the unprecedented trauma of October 7. As Ganor said, “There’s no doubt Israel needs to reform its hostage policy, but after October 7, in this singular case, where so large and so varied a group of hostages was taken, it is not the time to shift gears.”

As the debate continues, the question remains: What kind of Israel emerges when the last hostage finally comes home — or doesn’t?