With nearly all of Israel riveted on the remaining 50 hostages seized by Hamas terrorists in the sneak attack of Oct. 7, 2023, the inevitable question for visitors is whether the military has a secret mission in the works to secure their rescue.
But despite Israel's storied reputation for successful rescue operations, no such mission is in the works for the 50 held somewhere in Gaza and reportedly facing starvation.
"It's wishful thinking," Capt. Adam Ittah of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) told Newsmax flatly, "They have the hostages in different locations and send us pictures of them as if to dare us to try to rescue them."
Ittah spoke to us not far from the Nova Music Festival site at which 378 were killed in the Oct. 7 massacre and standing before hundreds of wrecked automobiles owned by Israeli settlers attacked by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza).
"Many of the pictures show hostages hooked up to explosive devices and suggest strongly that they will be executed immediately if we attempt to rescue them," said Ittah.
Dana Weiss, a top-rated TV journalist, seconded this opinion.
"[The terrorists] have sensors and cameras in the underground tunnels," she told us, "They will know if someone is coming, and a rescue mission would be too risky."
Weiss added that "the only way [to rescue the hostages] is through an agreement. And right now, the pictures of the hostages show people who are starving, just like the inmates at [the Nazi concentration camp] Auschwitz."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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