https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/08/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas
Of course this would be the first take that The New York Times emails me upon the liberation of four Israeli hostages.
By the way, yeah, I actually pay money to The New York Times. What a freaking surprise that I believe what I believe, and I don't get my information from FOX and Newsmax.
We should all be celebrating the liberation of those four hostages who surely spent the last nine months in constant fear (at best). Of course, a lot of people aren't so happy to see Hamas lose a bit of leverage that didn't come from a trade of a Hamas prisoner.
This might be a good time to remind people of the perpetual dishonest conflation of the taking of civilian hostages by Hamas and the taking of prisoners by Israel. Despite what Hamas and its supporters want to have you think, these aren't the same thing. Just like there's no moral equivalence between collateral damage and the intentional targeting of civilians, there's no moral equivalence between taking civilian women and children hostage and taking militants and terrorists prisoner.
Of course there would be dead Palestinians as a result of Israel freeing her people from captivity. Surely, among the dead are a few Hamas fighters and operatives. It's not like it was only a bunch of innocent Palestinian women and children making sure the hostages didn't make a run for it. Also, surely Hamas and its cronies will just treat all of the deaths as an innocent victim.
Once again, all of these deaths were preventable by Hamas. All Hamas needed to do was to not take hostages. After they did take hostages, all they needed to do was surrender and release the hostages.
Every civilian death is a tragedy. All of the civilian blood is on Hamas's hands.