Emotions are still running high in Israel over the heroic operation that rescued four hostages in Gaza, but in a morbid parallel universe, pro-Hamas activists and celebrities like Bella Hadid are finding ways to demonize Israel for rescuing its citizens after eight long months of captivity.
Israeli hostages Noa Al-Ghamani, Almog Meir Jan, Shlomi Ziv and Andrei Kozlov have finally returned home after a daring IDF operation comparable to Operation Entebbe, which rescued 102 hostages in 1976. We all remember the horrifyingly graphic footage of October 7, one of which captured Noa’s kidnapping. The fear and anxiety on her face as Hamas abducted her on a motorbike and her demonic captors filmed it will forever be burned into the Israeli consciousness. It was a moment that traumatized many of us and revealed the true face of evil.
The rescue operation, originally called “Summer Seeds,” was highly complex and dangerous. The four hostages were held in two buildings (Noah in one and the three men in the other) in the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp. Both rescue operations had to be carried out simultaneously to avoid alerting Hamas and endangering the hostages. The raid took place during the day, allowing the IDF to maintain the element of surprise. Planning took weeks, with the IDF gathering intelligence and even building mock-ups of the buildings to plot the safest escape routes.
As details emerge, it seems more miraculous that the four hostages managed to escape unharmed. The IDF took Noa Al-Ghamani’s captors completely by surprise when they rescued her from the building. The soldiers who rescued her said she was barefoot and scared. She didn’t believe them at first when they told her, “We’re here to take you home. We’re here to save you.” Eventually, one of the soldiers carried her off on his back.
The apartment where the male hostages were being held came under heavy shelling by Hamas militants, who fired guns at the male hostages and rockets deep into the civilian area. Luckily, the soldiers were able to rescue Almog, Shlomi Ziv and Andrei, but at the cost of one of their soldiers, Officer Arnon Zamora, who was wounded during the battle and later died.
The incredible performance of the Israel Defense Forces and their handling of a horrific situation during the rescue operation helped to restore our faith. Eight months of despair and despair culminated in celebration in the streets of Israel. Watching the emotional reunion between Noah and his father still brings tears to my eyes.
The world continues to condemn Israel for saving its people.
However, in the anti-Semitic world in which we currently live, certain public figures and celebrities have demonized Israel in the rescue operation, blaming the IDF, not Hamas, for the high Palestinian death toll.
Less than 24 hours after the rescue, celebrities, activists and journalists took to social media to publicize the “4 out of 210” figure, implying that Jewish lives were more important than Palestinian lives. First, let’s acknowledge that the hostages were Palestinian civilians, including journalist Abdallah al-Jamal, who was holding three people captive in his family home in central Gaza.
According to Israel, Abdallah al-Jamal, who worked for the Qatari news agency Al Jazeera (a claim that Al Jazeera denies), lived on the third floor of the building where the three hostages were found. Al-Jamal has written opinion pieces for Al Jazeera and served as a spokesman for Hamas’s Ministry of Labor. The Palestine Chronicle also described him as a “prominent journalist.”
Civilian deaths are tragic, but there is currently no way to know the ratio of civilians to combatants in the fighting, and the death toll is not Israel’s fault. Hamas should never have taken the hostages in the first place, or placed them in civilian areas. If Hamas had not tried to kill rescue workers, the IDF would not have needed to use firepower to quell those firing at them. Hamas and its Palestinians should not have fired RPGs into crowds.
To place the blame for the death toll on anyone other than Hamas is simply proof that they either do not understand the rules of war or consider Jewish lives to be less valuable than other lives.
Only an anti-Semite would blame Israel for rescuing the hostages rather than Hamas for kidnapping them in the first place.
The author is a social media activist with over 10 years of experience in Israeli and Jewish activism and activist-based NGOs. She is the co-founder and COO of Social Lite Creative, a digital marketing company specializing in geopolitics.
