Amit Segal
Israel Hayom, Aug.7, 2025
“No one said this to me directly, but my impression is that the disagreement over how to bring down Hamas doesn’t just lie between the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet and the IDF chief of staff – it also exists between Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and chief of Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor.”
The half-life moment
Since around 2 p.m. on October 7, Hamas has become a different organization. Not really, of course. Just on television. Until that hour, its media arm was flooding the internet with videos of lynchings, executions, and homes set ablaze. Afterward, every video it released portrayed Hamas terrorists guarding the hostages at all costs. The aim was to cast Israel’s government as the villain, the side abandoning its own citizens and soldiers in enemy hands.
This week, Israel’s team for the hostages and missing persons debated whether the video showing Evyatar David in Holocaust like conditions marked a shift toward a new threat to kill the hostages. Their conclusion: it did not. They assessed that Hamas was trying to use David for its “Starving Gaza” campaign and failed to realize that the footage showed the opposite, that Gaza is the one doing the starving.
But Israeli officials believe the situation will change if Israel actually storms Gaza City. Until now, Hamas has used the hostages as a kind of “get out of jail free” card whenever it found itself in military trouble – and to extend the Monopoly metaphor, to send Israel back to the starting square, “GO”…..SOURCE