A chilling list has recently come to light, casting a long shadow over ongoing discussions. This isn't a roster of hostages, but rather a catalog of murdered victims. It contains several columns: the first lists hundreds of bereaved families who lost loved ones to acts of terror; the second details the names of those murdered; the third specifies familial connection – fathers, mothers, siblings, grandparents, in-laws, spouses. Entire worlds, once vibrant, are now lost forever. A closer examination reveals that these attacks span several decades. Almost every goodwill gesture or deal involving the release of terrorists has led to further bloodshed. Some attacks were carried out by the very individuals who had been freed.
This list was presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, accompanied by a letter from families opposing the release of their loved ones' killers. Anyone losing sleep over the fate of the hostages – and rightfully so – should be equally troubled by this grim catalog. They should be tormented to at least the same degree. But there's a problem: Likely, this list and others like it have never reached the wider public. The media, generally, has not made an effort to amplify and publicize them, as it does – and rightly so – with lists of hostages.
This is an unfair game, rigged from the start. We are inundated 24/7 with stories of the hostages, their distress, and their suffering. Yet simultaneously, there is no real discussion about the implications of the price demanded for their rescue. The price isn't just strategic withdrawals from crucial areas like the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors. It also means freeing hundreds, possibly thousands, of convicted killers and terrorists – some of whom are likely to resume their violent activities.
We've seen this pattern before – with the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal and before we disengaged from Gaza, as well as before the Oslo Accords. Hadas Mizrahi, whose husband Baruch was killed and who was herself gravely wounded in a Passover Eve attack about a decade ago, shared her perspective with me this week. The attacker, Ziad Awad, had been freed as part of the Shalit deal. She explained that trading hostages for convicted terrorists, knowing full well that many will return to violence, is essentially swapping one set of victims for another. "It's blood for blood," she said.
Mizrahi's words are stark, but they reflect a reality the Israeli public needs to confront. Dvora Gonen, Danny Gonen's mother, expresses a similar sentiment. Her son's killer, Osama Assad, was also released in that deal. Gonen said, "The difference between the hostages and the next generation of victims who will be murdered by those released in the upcoming deal is that the hostages have faces and names – while the future victims remain unknown. On the other hand, the previous generation of victims, murdered by those released in previous deals, have both faces and names."
Murdered on the eve of her wedding
Malachy Rosenfeld was another victim, killed in an attack orchestrated by Ahmad Najjar, who had been freed in the Shalit deal. Malachy's father, Eliezer, has a stark demand for the prime minister: release terrorists only if it's impossible to rescue the hostages through military action, and only if Israel commits to hunting down these released terrorists afterward. "We need action, not empty words or declarations," he insisted. Yet even his voice seems to fall on deaf ears these days.
One could fill pages with the suffering of the murdered, the wounded, and the families whose lives were forever changed by released terrorists. The question that now demands an answer is how the media, which prides itself on journalistic integrity, allows itself to ignore such a crucial aspect of the nightmare we're currently living through.
Many of the released terrorists roamed for years in Gaza, Turkey, Jordan, and the West Bank. They perpetrated terror, led operations, aided attacks, and were deeply involved in terrorist activities. The entire Hamas command structure that planned the Oct. 7 massacre, led by Yahya Sinwar, was notably composed of terrorists released as part of the Shalit deal. The terrorist leader Saleh al-Arouri, eliminated in Lebanon, was responsible for directing hundreds of both attempted and successful attacks from Turkey, following an ill-fated decision by Israel to reach a deportation agreement with him.
Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava were murdered by the released terrorist Ramez Sali Abu Salim in Sep. 2003, as they dined together on the eve of Nava's wedding. Mahmoud Qawasameh, another terrorist released in the Shalit deal, planned the kidnapping and murder of three teenagers from Gush Etzion in the summer of 2014. Soldiers Yosef Cohen and Yuval Mor-Yosef, and the infant Amiad Israel, were murdered in an attack directed from Gaza by Jasser Barghouti, yet another one released in the Shalit deal.
Since 1985, Israel has released thousands of terrorists as part of deals, gestures of goodwill, or political frameworks. About half of them returned to terrorism. Hundreds were killed or injured by these terrorists, even before the Oct. 7 massacre.
The 1,150 prisoners freed in the 1985 Jibril deal went on to form the core of the First Intifada. A sample study conducted by the Ministry of Defense regarding 238 of those terrorists, found that about half returned to terrorist activity. More than half of the 7,000 terrorists released following the Oslo Accords integrated into Palestinian terror groups, and even participated in the Second Intifada. Dozens of those released in the Tannenbaum deal also returned to violence.
Perhaps you are mistaken again?
Yoram Cohen, the former head of Shin Bet, along with other security officials, backed the Shalit deal, confident that Israel could handle the fallout. The steep cost, culminating in the recent massacre, has proven them tragically mistaken. Now, as security chiefs unanimously endorse another deal, shouldn't we be challenging them? Asking repeatedly, "Perhaps you are mistaken again?" Last time, they thought the price was manageable. Instead, we paid in rivers of blood.
One of the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacre was Ali Qadi, released in the Shalit deal. He had been among the kidnappers of Sasson Nuriel in 2005. Nuriel was murdered shortly after. Qadi served only six years of his life sentence, and on Oct. 7, as a commander in Hamas' Nukhba force, he led a raid on the Erez crossing, where he murdered and captured Israelis. He was killed by Israel at the beginning of the war.
The fact that the story about Qadi and other equally significant details are not being highlighted in the media now, at least to the same level as the stories of the hostages and their suffering, is inconceivable. By presenting only one side of the story, the media is neglecting its fundamental responsibility.
Back in 2011, I was one of the few voices in Israeli media opposing the Shalit deal, and I caught flak from some colleagues for it. The media landscape was overwhelmingly in favor of Shalit's return at any price. The government, too, gave in to a well-orchestrated wave of public emotion that drove one-sided coverage and left no room for a balanced public debate on the deal's implications. We're seeing the same pattern unfold now.
We're facing a new reality now - a far larger and more complex hostage crisis involving civilians who were left defenseless. This abandonment will likely force us into making painful concessions. But it's unthinkable that the public should be kept in the dark about what these compromises really mean. We can't shy away from the hellish dilemma of trading "blood for blood," as Hadas Mizrahi put it – essentially swapping the lives of hostages for potential future victims, and we can't afford to ignore the lessons of the past.
