Hamas has indicated it is currently unable to identify and track down 40 Israeli hostages needed for the first phase of a ceasefire deal, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the discussions, raising fears that more hostages may be dead than are publicly known.
They are probably still there, check hospitals, community centres, school, emergency camps... you will probably find their corpses under all the rubble from Israeli fired American and British missiles.
The criteria are for women and the elderly to be released. The majority of the remaining hostages are men of military age (as Israel has mandatory conscription, they are military personnel by definition).
The framework that has been laid out by negotiators says that during a first six-week pause in the fighting, Hamas should release 40 of the remaining hostages, including all the women as well as sick and elderly men. In exchange, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be released from Israeli prisons.
Hamas has told international mediators – which include Qatar and Egypt - it does not have 40 living hostages who match those criteria for release, both sources said.
...
With Hamas appearing to be unable to reach 40 in the proposed categories, Israel has pushed for Hamas to fill out the initial release with younger male hostages, including soldiers, the Israeli official said.
And even when they try their best, it’s hard when a larger terrorist organization is actively trying to genocide them and bomb everything they know to rubble.
I mean IDF has been dishonest certainly but this is something that has been thoroughly examined and vetted by this point. We would know if there were doubts about the number.
These events are also different because they are singular points in time—the lies serve to diffuse criticism until the public attention has faded so that less invested members of the public never learn the truth. So I’m not sure I agree they are foolish unfortunately, though there is of course a long term risk with using this tactic too often.
The hostage count is an ongoing thing. If they continued to stand by numbers that people are commonly discussing and have learned are incorrect, it would be much more embarrassing for them than the above incidents which are mostly forgotten by the general public, excepting perhaps the most recent one which did seem to break through a bit more.
Well, OP linked a CNN article. And CNN says there aren't 40 noncombatant hostages...
So, no....
We don't have to just listen to Hamas or Israel.
Because Israel hasn't been able to kill every international journalist that investigated their genocide. They've killed a shit ton, but not all of them.
You are really stretching logic here in order to justify your hate towards Israel or approval towards Hamas. Hamas kidnaps 100s of people, Israel wants 40 back and you say they are making unreasonable demands that can't be followed? What should they say... naah keep em for raping and playing? Consider it a token of good faith?
An estimated 200 people, including 30 teenagers and young children and 20 people over the age of 60, are being held hostage in Gaza, Israel's public broadcaster Kan said on Thursday, citing military sources.
Hamas says it has 200 hostages and that 50 more are held by other armed groups in the enclave. It said more than 20 hostages have been killed by Israeli air strikes, but has not given any further details.
In November 2023, Palestinian militants held around 250 people from Israel, including Israeli nationals and non-Israelis following their capture during the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Edit 2: my mistake, they corroborate their numbers (250)