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The incremental release of hostages from Gaza over the past few days could continue, according to Frank Ledwidge, a senior lecturer in strategic studies at Portsmouth University and a former UK military intelligence officer.
“I don’t think it’s a one-off,” he told DW.
“This would be a strategic negotiating tactic on the one hand, and a propaganda effort on the other.”
“It’s worth mentioning, by the way, that under Islamic law it’s fairly settled that women and children should never be harmed and preferably not held as hostages. So this release could be used to established some kind of legitimacy, but of course that’s just propaganda.”
Ledwidge said Israel has the upper hand because the longer it waits, the more time it has to gather intelligence and prepare for a military operation.
“All the efforts of a formidable Israeli intelligence system, plus the US and I suspect the UK, Germany, France and others, are focused on this problem now, and that’s a pretty formidable array,” he said.
However, Ledwidge noted that the militant Islamist group Hamas still had certain advantages in the event of a ground invasion, such as a more intimate knowledge of the environment.
“Israel’s soldiers want to survive. Hamas terrorists are not interested one way or the other,” he added.
“And therefore there’s that human element which will undoubtedly work to the detriment of many people and will increase casualties.”
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