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Maya Alleruzzo

There is news about Noa Argamani, though only the macabre kind. You may recall <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yYtQJ71Rkg" target=_blank>Noa as the 25-year-old Israeli woman</a> whom <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/israel-hamas-war/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Hamas</a>-led Palestinians abducted on Oct. 7 as she screamed, “Don’t kill me!” Video of that horrific moment went viral.

On April 12,<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/new-clip-shows-petrified-israeli-hostage-noa-argamani-being-abducted-into-gaza/" target="_blank"> fresh footage </a>emerged: a 10-second clip in which Noa, recognizable by her clothing, sits between two kidnappers on a Gaza-bound motorcycle, a black hood over her head, her voice audible only as a prolonged, bloodcurdling sob.

Today, Noa is among dozens of hostages who remain — alive or dead — somewhere in Gaza, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-six-months-of-war-clock-ticking-for-gaza-hostages-terminally-ill-mother/" target="_blank">as her mother</a> battles terminal cancer and pleads with Hamas to set her daughter free.

Noa was on the minds of millions of Jews, and others, who gathered this week for Passover, the annual festive meal whose theme, especially poignant this year, is liberation and exodus. At many Seders, participants left an empty seat to recall the hostages’ plight, which Noa’s agony epitomizes.

As war between Israel and Gaza stretches past its 200th day, and as hostage negotiations stall, the one thing everyone can do for the captives is not forget them.

On Oct. 7, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and various unnamed groups seized 253 people, both soldiers and (mostly) civilians, including many non-Israelis and dual citizens. The terrorist groups negotiated the release of 105 civilians during a four-day pause in fighting in late November; they had let four others go before that. Israeli forces have rescued three, and have recovered 12 bodies of hostages — including three the military itself killed in a tragic blunder.

Of the remaining 129, Israel says 34 are dead; rumors and unofficial reports suggest a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israeli-officials-fear-most-hostages-held-by-hamas-are-dead-report/" target=_blank>significantly higher number. </a>For what it’s worth, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/14/how-many-israeli-captives-have-been-released-or-rescued" target=_blank>Hamas claims </a>Israeli airstrikes have killed 50 hostages. Talks over an exchange of hostages for Israel’s Palestinian prisoners have broken down in part because Hamas could not provide a list of 40 living civilians to fulfill the terms of a U.S.-proposed deal.

U.S. officials recently blamed Hamas for the talks’ failure; five of those being held are U.S. citizens.

The statistics, though, cannot do justice to the anguish of the hostages and their families any more than the body count in Gaza encapsulates Palestinian grief.

What is apparent, though, is the tremendous suffering of the remaining hostages — whose ages when captured ranged from nine months in the case of the infant Kfir Bibas to 85 <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/ski39j4ra" target=_blank>for Shlomo Mansour</a>, a survivor of the 1941 massacre of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13610702" target=_blank>180 Jews by a Nazi-inspired mob in Baghdad</a>. They have been deprived of medical treatment and abused physically, mentally and, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/04/hamas-rape-un-report-hostages/" target=_blank>a United Nations report </a>acknowledged, sexually.

“There’s not a single person that came back that didn’t have a significant physical injury or a medical problem,” Israeli physician Itai Pessach told CBS News after examining hostages set free in November.

In a Dec. 5 meeting with the Israeli cabinet, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/06/middleeast/leaked-audio-of-heated-meeting-reveals-hostages-fury-at-netanyahu/index.html" target="_blank">one freed hostage </a>said that her husband, then still in captivity, had been driven mad and “beat himself every day” until he bled.

As for Noa, the last evidence she is still alive was a video released Jan. 14, in which she stared into a Hamas camera and said she survived being trapped under rubble after an Israeli airstrike — and that Israeli fire had killed two hostages held with her.

<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-hostage-yossi-sharabi-was-likely-killed-as-a-result-of-idf-strike/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20IDF's%20probe,IDF's%20protocols%2C%20the%20probe%20finds." target=_blank>Israel has acknowledged </a>that its strikes killed one of them, Yossi Sharabi, 53. The sister of the second, Itai Svirsky, 38, however, said <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/383871" target=_blank>Hamas killed him</a> as he tried to escape <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/sister-of-slain-hostage-svirsky-says-he-would-be-been-better-off-killed-on-october-7/" target=_blank>during an Israeli attack</a>.

<a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/383871" target=_blank>She accused</a> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of pursuing Hamas’s destruction at the expense of freeing the hostages, a charge echoed by many Israelis who have taken to the streets in protest of what they say is his insufficient effort to pursue an agreement. For his part, Netanyahu insists Hamas will not deal unless it’s under military pressure.

Perhaps the most objective way to look at this increasingly bitter argument among Israelis is that Hamas undoubtedly intended to provoke it.

Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yehiya Sinwar, is well aware of Israel’s desire to crush his forces. He also knows the social contract in Israel: The people serve in the Israel Defense Forces, or inhabit dangerous border areas, understanding that the government will move heaven and earth to free them if they fall into enemy hands. Convicted of murdering both Israelis and Palestinians, Sinwar was one of 1,027 incarcerated Palestinians Israel traded for a single soldier held in Gaza, Gilad Shalit, in 2011.

The terrorists seized hostages overwhelmingly from the kibbutzim near Gaza, liberal bastions whose suspicion of Netanyahu is deep — and mutual — as Sinwar also knows.

The fact is that there is widespread support in Israel for its declared war aims: Destroy Hamas and free the hostages. Yet pursuing them simultaneously presents tactical dilemmas, both political and military.

For Sinwar, ensconced somewhere underground, possibly with Israeli captives nearby, these unfortunate souls represent the most effective human shields imaginable.

Anyone, on <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2023-11-02/the-war-on-college-campuses" target=_blank>a U.S. college campus</a> or elsewhere, who would downplay or justify what Sinwar’s men did on Oct. 7 needs to watch the videos of Noa Argamani — and think again.

Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, 2009

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Harvard College, BA in social studies

Yale Law School, MSL 

Charles Lane is a deputy opinion editor and columnist for The Post.

Charles Lane

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Israeli hostages were on many Seder guest lists for Passover this year

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