| atomicfear said: Would Hamas be willing to offer up the perpetrators of the Oct 6th attacks as a way to end the war? |
I doubt it, I doubt they even know who all crossed the border on Oct 7th. It started with a wave of fighters attacking the military outpost, then more regular people started crossing as well.
And even if Hamas somehow could convince all their fighters to surrender, the current war cabinet isn't going to be swayed by that anyway. They made it clear they consider all Palestinians of fighting age to be part of Hamas. Eylon Levy openly states it in the video a few posts above and Netanuyahu has also repeatedly said there are no innocent civilians. They have accused UNWRA, reporters, the PRCS, and attacked basically everyone and everything.
Hamas has tried to negotiate, they had a pretty good plan a month ago for a phased ceasefire with hostage exchange. Yet Netanyahu keeps moving the goal posts and doesn't want the war to end. When the war ends, his political grip on the country ends. They don't want people looking into how October 7th happened and what exactly all happened on the day of Oct 7 with the IDFs military response that day.
They have also stated that the hostages are not a priority, destroying Hamas is the priority. Making sure Oct 7 can never happen again, which in Israel's eyes means total destruction of the Gaza strip to get rid of the claimed 350 to 450 miles of tunnels. (Which is a ludicrous claim, the NY subway, largest in the world, has 650 miles of track... The total length of the London Underground network is 250 miles) They have stated over and over again that a ceasefire would be giving Hamas victory.
So no, giving up the perpetrators nor the hostages (what's left of them, 134 claimed by Israel however the acknowledged at least 31 have died in the war since the temporary ceasefire) will end the war. Hamas likely doesn't even know where all the hostages are anymore. Since Israel uses informants and torture to extract information, they're likely spread out with different groups. They said some are not in their hands instead with other militant groups.
Israel keeps on fighting without any clear goals or day after in mind. At least not any goals that are acceptable. The current actions indicate, total destruction of all infrastructure in Gaza, splitting Gaza in half with highway 749 and a 1 km buffer zone around the highway and inside the borders of Gaza. They want to secure the Philadelphia corridor cutting Gaza off from Egypt, hence they're not planning to stop until taking Rafah and demolishing everything along the Egyptian border. Then the far right has plans for new settlements in Gaza while maintaining military control of the strip.
Meanwhile Israel wants to turn the demographics back in their favor. Currently it's a bit over 7.2 million Jews in Israel, 2 million Arabs, 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza, 3 million in the West Bank. That's 9.4 million Arabs and Palestinians vs 7.2 million Jews. Far right ministers have stated that they would be fine withb a population of a few hundred thousand in the Gaza strip and have been trying to get other countries on board to take Palestinians out of Gaza.
So again no, Hamas is not going to surrender to any of that. The perpetrators of the Oct 7 attacks and Hamas leaders need to be tried in a war crimes tribunal along with the violent Settlers stoking up violence in the Westbank and IDF soldiers and leaders committing war crimes in Gaza.
Expecting Hamas surrender to end the war is no different from expecting Ukraine surrender to end Russia's invasion.
