The Middle East conflict spans decades and many generations. The multigenerational nature of the conflict has also contributed to a lot of views not only on how the disagreement is being prosecuted by the opposing parties but also overbearing impact on rhetorics and how parties are being described. The media waves gave popularity to new vocabularies such as antisemitism, islamophobia, racism, settlers, resistance, terrorists and so much more. The two words that caught my attention lately are captives and hostages.
The Middle East conflict, though multidimensional in origin and nature did not start on October 7th, we can all agree on that fact despite the side chosen by my esteemed readers. It started decades ago in 1948 when modern day Israel was founded as a nation. The Arab has called this a Naqba meaning catastrophe. Wars were fought on several occasions and fronts, but genuine peace eluded the region despite attempts on both sides through mediators.
Fast forward to October 7th 2023. The early morning sky were light up with fireworks. Hamas rockets and Israeli defense systems , code named irondome clashed that early morning at the skies of southern Israeli towns. Those were not new, but what was novel at least to the younger generations on both sides is what happened on the ground that early morning. The Palestinian fighters breeched the security fence separating Gaza and Israel, killing the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers manning the defense, raiding town and community round the border. The official tallies from Israel revealed an estimated 1400 Israelis and foreign nationals died that morning with atleast 240 missing and presumably carried across the border to Gaza by the invading army. This is another Yom kipper for the Israeli
Captives or Hostages? The Western Media called them hostages virtually in all their reports while the Arab and Islamic media have chosen captives, a more mild adjective to describe those that were taken across the border by Hamas. How were these two words defines according to United Nations? The United Nations (UN) does not have a specific definition for “captives” and “hostages.” However, it has adopted several resolutions and conventions that address the issue of hostage-taking and the protection of civilians in armed conflicts.
According to most non_aligned sources, Hostages are typically taken to demand concessions or ransom payments in exchange for the safe release of the hostages. These demands can include political or economic concessions, such as the release of imprisoned militants or the payment of large sums of money. Hostage-taking can also be used as a means of spreading fear and propaganda, and can have significant destabilizing effects on governments and communities.Captives, on the other hand, are individuals who are taken prisoner by an opposing force during a conflict or war. They may be soldiers, civilians, or prisoners of war, and are often subjected to mistreatment, torture, and other forms of abuse. Captivity can last for extended periods of time, and can have severe physical and psychological consequences for those involved.
The defining difference is if demands are being made for release of individuals being held. Another important difference is the age and military capability or significance of the detainees. A soldier can’t be referred to as hostage if taken prisoner during war. A captive or “prisoner of war” would be appropriate description in such circumstance.
It is no news that Israel and the Palestinians have been in the state of war punctured with intermittent ceasefire since 1948. Hamas, the militant group of the Palestinian have maintained that all Israeli of military age are combatants and therefore are legitimate targets in this conflict. Israel on the other hand insists that Israeli not serving in it’s military are recognized under international law as civilians and shouldn’t be targeted. In fact to deliberately target them is termed terrorism by Israel and most western nations. It is important to say that UN has no universally accepted definition of terrorism, but it generally involves acts of violence or threats of violence carried out by non-state actors
Conclusion
Having analyzed these definitions of hostages and captives from neutral sources and the ages of those taken by Hamas. It is evident that some of them are children under military service age, implying that they have not served in the military and therefore should not have been taken as part of any military operations. It will be correct therefore to say Hamas incursion of October 7th is permitted under international law governing conflict. The killing, taking and using under aged Israelis as bargaining chips is act synonymous to terrorism and hostage taking. I will agree that the serving soldiers taken by Hamas are captives or prisoners of war. The classification of the so-called Israeli civilians, I will leave to the readers of this article to decide.
Olufemi Oshonuga
MEMBA12
Crisis Management and Problem Analysis: A Synergistic Approach