Returning all hostages may be impossible, warns Israeli lawmaker

The hostages will be freed when “Hamas understands it doesn’t have a choice but to return them,” says Coalition MK.

By World Israel News Staff

It may be impossible for Israel to ensure the return of all the hostages kidnapped on October 7th, who have been held in the Gaza Strip for more than seven months, a member of the Knesset said on Wednesday.

“I wish it were possible to return all the hostages — I’m not sure that’s possible,” MK Tzvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionist Party told Radio 103FM.

“We need to do everything to bring them home, but not anything that will critically harm national security.”

Sukkot said he and his party colleagues believe that the most effective strategy for freeing the hostages is an intensive military campaign, rather than negotiations.

The hostages will be freed when “Hamas understands it doesn’t have a choice but to return them,” Sukkot said.

According to the lawmaker, public criticism from the Biden administration, United Nations, and European Union towards Israel regarding the ongoing fighting in the Strip had put Hamas in a position of strength.

The terror group understands that Israel is under immense pressure to scale back military operations, so Hamas “has no reason to make concessions to Israel.”

Sukkot also said he believed that building Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip would help secure the future of the Jewish state.

“In almost every war Israel took territory from the enemy,” he said. “Settlement in Gaza is just a very small part of what we are thinking of for the day after [the war concludes].”

The Religious Zionist Party has emphasized the importance of a decisive victory over Hamas, and members of the political alliance have expressed their opposition to a sweeping hostage deal which would see the release of tens of thousands of terrorists.