Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Reuters)
Until a few days before the start of the temporary truce between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian resistance, led by Hamas, the families of Israeli prisoners - held by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip - continued their marches in front of the Israeli Ministry of Defense building in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem with the participation of tens of thousands in order to pressure the Israeli Prime Minister, who kept repeating that his forces would continue their war on Gaza until the release of these prisoners by force.
According to its confessions, the occupation has lost more than 70 soldiers inside the Gaza Strip, and the real number of dead is expected to be several times this number, in addition to thousands of injured and hundreds of destroyed vehicles.
The biggest loss for the families of the detainees was the death of many detainees during the Israeli bombardments of homes in the Gaza Strip, where resistance statements indicated that 60 of them were killed during the Israeli bombardment, a result, alone, indicating the failure of the option of forcibly freeing prisoners in Gaza.
Of course, the truce – which lasted 7 days since November 24 – was practical evidence of the collapse of the path of liberating detainees in Gaza by force, after the Israeli occupation forces failed practically to do anything, and all their stories and information that promoted that the detainees and the Hamas leadership are in headquarters under Al-Shifa and Al-Rantisi hospitals failed, which proved to be false in front of the eyes of the whole world.
On a practical level, Israel has historically been unable to succeed in freeing prisoners held by Palestinian organizations or even Arab countries except through negotiations.
Historically Forced Liberation Failed
Throughout history, there have been many failed attempts to free prisoners, and not only there, but these attempts have backfired; the first of which was the infliction of deaths and injuries on the attacking side, sometimes more than the number of prisoners who were tried to free them, and most of the time the prisoners themselves were killed.
Attempts to forcibly free prisoners also increase the likelihood of conflict escalating and losing confidence, spiraling things out of control. For example, in World War I, Russian forces attempted to free prisoners of war from German concentration camps, leading to the Battle of Kursk, which ended in the defeat of Russian forces.
In the American Civil War, federal forces attempted to free captives from Confederate concentration camps, leading to the Battle of Springfield, in which federal forces were defeated.
Looking at the scientific findings on this subject, a 2015 Harvard study based on statistical analysis found that the success rate of forcible prisoner release is only 20%.
While a 2017 University of Cambridge study – based on ad hoc case studies – proved that the success rate of forcible release of prisoners is only 15%, while a study at the University of Oxford in 2019 entitled: "Release of prisoners by force: an analysis of the cost of interest", found that the release of prisoners by force often leads to an escalation of conflict and increased human losses.
Failure on a practical level
On a practical level, the occupying power has historically been unable to succeed in freeing prisoners held by Palestinian organizations or even Arab countries, except through negotiations, the latest of which was the temporary truce in November 2023, the Gilad Shalit deal on October 18, 2011 with Hamas, the Nawras deal in 1983 with the Popular Front for the General Command, and before that another deal with the Popular Front in 1979.
For example, the use of a categorical negotiation method led to the failure of an exchange deal for Israeli pilot Ron Arad, who was captured in 1986, and contact with the captors is cut to this day, and anyone who captures Israeli soldiers to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for them still reminds the occupation of its handling of the Ron Arad case.
This incident has a special dimension for the current Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevy, who was involved in the kidnapping of Amal leader Mustafa al-Dirani in 1994 to obtain information about Ron Arad, but the occupation got nothing, and even Dirani came out in 2004 in an exchange deal.
In 1992, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin refused to release Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in exchange for the release of soldier Nassim Toledano, and after the expiration of the Qassam Brigades' ten-day deadline, the soldier was killed.
By the way, the Israeli government deported 415 Hamas leaders to Marj al-Zuhur in response to this operation, and the result was completely opposite, as the deportation process provided a meeting for Hamas, which contributed to the unification of the movement's thought, decision and cohesion.
In 1994, the Israeli occupation government refused to deal with the demands of Hamas, which captured the soldier Nahshon Wachsman, and in the end the soldier was killed, and a number of Israeli soldiers who tried to liberate him were killed and wounded by force.
In 2014, Hamas captured soldiers Aaron Shaul and Hadar Goldin in a military ambush. In 2016, the Qassam Brigades captured Abraham Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, and the occupation is still procrastinating in achieving an exchange agreement regarding them, bringing their fate closer to that of Ron Arad.
The only situation in the history of the conflict in which the occupying Power succeeded, relatively, in freeing hostages that were not in Palestine, and was not in fact a success in the aggregate, came after two Palestinians from the Popular Front in 1976 hijacked a passenger plane with 103 Israelis on board, and took it from Athens airport to Entebbe airport in Uganda. Israeli commandos killed 53 Ugandan soldiers, and Benjamin Netanyahu's brother Jonathan Netanyahu, as well as 20 other Israeli detainees.
Relations between Uganda and Tel Aviv were severed, and the attackers killed three Israeli hostages, one of whom remains – in particular – engraved in the memory of Netanyahu himself, who today leads the decision-making process regarding the release of Israeli detainees and prisoners in the Gaza Strip.
Thus, we can say that if studies in 3 prestigious universities prove that the rate of forcible release of prisoners reaches 15-20%, the success rate of the Israeli occupation in freeing prisoners inside Palestine by force - specifically from the hands of the Qassam Brigades - is zero.
If Operation Entebbe is considered by some to be an example of a successful process of forcibly freeing prisoners, the severance of diplomatic relations with Uganda and the killing of a senior attacking officer and 3 Israeli detainees as a result of this operation greatly calls into question the success of this example.
In fact, the occupation is in a major dilemma in front of the issues of capturing its soldiers and settlers, as in both cases it will inevitably lose, whether by accepting the demands of the Palestinian resistance forces, implementing exchange deals, or by following stubbornness and arrogance, and seeking to free prisoners by force, which causes it losses that may exceed its calculations, and in results that scientific and practical experience has proven that it will not be in its favor in the end.
The lines of this article were written before the Qassam announced – during the current aggression on Gaza – the killing of the Israeli prisoner Baruch Sa'ar, and the injury and death of a number of Israeli forces that tried to reach him by infiltrating the place by an ambulance belonging to a humanitarian organization, which gives us recent practical evidence, not only of the inability of the Israeli occupation to free any prisoner, but also its increasing loss during its attempts and dedication to its failure in this file.
According to historical and scientific experience, the occupation will not obtain any of its prisoners from the hands of the resistance, except by agreeing to the conditions of the resistance, and it is enough for Netanyahu and Halevy - in particular - to forget the possibility of achieving any success that covers their current and previous failures.