Hamas shows it is not ready for peace

Hamas’s grotesque inhumanity and disregard for the plight of Gaza’s desperate people is clear in its disgraceful unwillingness, 150 days into the war, to provide even a list of names of the 134 hostages it is believed to be holding. Not unreasonably, it might have been thought that doing something so fundamental to basic human decency would have been the easy part of negotiations in Cairo over a Ramadan ceasefire. Instead, such has been Hamas’s barbaric intransigence and determination that Israel has had to abort plans to send a delegation to Cairo.

Hopefully, a way around the impasse may be found. But even if it is, it should do nothing to alter perceptions of Hamas’s unutterable evil when it comes to what should be normal human conduct even in times of war. Reports on Monday that if the negotiating teams in Cairo do manage to agree on a ceasefire, Hamas’s notorious Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, could scupper it add to concern about the plight of both the hostages and the starving Gazans. According to The Wall Street Journal, Sinwar, last known to be operating from tunnels deep under Rafah, has not been in touch with the terrorists’ leadership in Qatar for several days. But in his last message he said there should be no rush to secure a hostage deal. He also is reported to have indicated his preference for “tensions to increase over Ramadan rather than achieve a pause in the fighting … Sinwar was hoping that an Israeli incursion into Rafah over Ramadan would push Palestinians living in Israel and the West Bank to rise up against Israel”.

Even more dangerous days almost certainly lie ahead with the advent of Ramadan at sunset on Sunday. But the world needs to be clear-eyed about Hamas’s ruthless inhumanity and responsibility for the plight of starving Palestinians, no less than the suffering of the hostages it is holding in defiance of every humanitarian convention on the conduct of war.