Hamas actions are bad for peace

As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, it should be of deepening concern to leaders everywhere that the Hamas perpetrators of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust are failing to fulfil their obligations in terms of the Gaza ceasefire concluded with Israel. According to Israeli government officials at the weekend, the terrorists were, in terms of the agreement, supposed to provide by Saturday a complete list “revealing the status of all the hostages held in Gaza captivity”.

The list was “expected to include details on how many of the hostages remain in Hamas captivity – how many are still alive and how many are deceased”.

Adding to concern in Jerusalem is that while four female Israeli soldiers who were being held hostage following the October 7, 2023, slaughter of 1200 Jews were handed over on Saturday, there was no word from the terrorists about the fate of 29-year-old female civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud, whose release was expected to precede that of the soldiers. Hamas’s blatant violation of the agreement has already caused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to announce that “Israel will not allow Gazans to cross into the northern Gaza Strip”. The cause of ending the war and bringing home not just the remaining hostages but ending the suffering of Gazans is being put at risk by Hamas’s callous tactics, which are playing into the hands of the remaining far-right members of Mr Netanyahu’s government who, from the start, have opposed any ceasefire.

Despite the ceasefire agreement, Hamas is undermining hopes that a sustainable end to the Gaza crisis could be imminent. US intelligence assessments disclosed by former secretary of state Antony Blinken at the weekend that Hamas had recruited “almost as many new militants as it has lost” in the war – some 15,000 – adds another sobering dimension to deepening fears over where the ceasefire agreement might be headed.

Hamas, in all it has been doing – or not doing – since the ceasefire agreement was signed, is continuing to show all the signs of unrelenting murderous intent it displayed in the October 7 massacre. It is clearly attempting to show the world that it is unbowed and unbeaten.

That is the grim reality the world faces into the second week of the ceasefire. It is a reality that presents grave challenges to Israel and its people as it marks the sacred 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau from the perpetrators of the Holocaust that killed six million Jews.