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Anyone belittling U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for post-war Gaza should observe the spectacle of Hamas monsters and their ardent supporters gathering in droves to terrorize each hostage before his or her release, while asserting “victory” over the “Zionist enemy.”
The latest example of this travesty—the least of what the kidnapped Israelis and foreign nationals have been subjected to during their captivity—was displayed on Saturday. Hate-filled Gazans of all ages, sporting Hamas’s signature green headbands, cheered while Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami were led to a podium and forced to put on a performance for jihadist propaganda purposes.
Hanging from the stage was a banner with the Hebrew phrase, “Total victory,” the vow-turned-slogan reiterated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the goal of the war. On each side were posters of “martyred” Hamas commanders. The graphic setup wasn’t merely an expression of ridicule; it also conveyed that the West is no match for enemies who glorify death.
The backdrop for the horrific scene of the emaciated victims, alongside their rifle-wielding brutalizers who shoved microphones and cameras in their faces, was a massive banner. It contained a fist and Palestinian flag next to a sentence in Arabic, Hebrew and English—the latter poorly translated—reading: “We’re the flood; we’re the day after.”
The first part of the boast was a reference to the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, dubbed by its barbaric perpetrators and all those who celebrated it as “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.”
The second alluded to Trump’s announcement on Feb. 4, during a joint press conference at the White House with Netanyahu, that the United States would be taking over Gaza and transforming it into a flourishing international hub.
The very idea of America’s playing any role in the “day after,” let alone assuming responsibility for the enclave run and inhabited by mass murderers, had never crossed anybody’s mind—least of all Hamas’s. But the organization must have taken seriously Trump’s earlier threat that “all hell would break loose” if the hostages weren’t released by the time of his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Though only three were freed a day before his swearing-in ceremony, it was the start of the “ceasefire” deal that Hamas had refused to accept until then. It’s an arrangement that even those Israelis who realize the concrete perils inherent in its fruition have come to view as a necessary pill to swallow. Few disregard the impossible situation foisted on the Jewish state by Hitler-emulating Islamists.
As Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism, “Who could solve the moral dilemma of the Greek mother, who was allowed by the Nazis to choose which of her three children should be killed?”
To get a sense of Israel’s own moral dilemma, a description of three individuals in three different relevant categories is in order. Let’s start with the men who emerged after a year and four months in Hamas terror tunnels looking like Holocaust survivors.
Sharabi, 52, was abducted from his home on Kibbutz Be’eri, along with his older brother, Yossi, during the Hamas massacre. Unbeknown to him, his wife and two daughters, aged 13 and 16, were slaughtered that day, and Yossi was killed while in captivity. Returning to Israel dangerously thin, pale and obviously ill, he was confronted with the news of his annihilated loved ones.
Levy, a 34-year-old resident of Rishon Letzion, was abducted from the Nova Music Festival, where his wife, Eynav, was murdered inside a bomb shelter by a Hamas grenade—something he only discovered upon his return. The couple’s then-2-year-old son, Almog, was cared for by both sets of grandparents.
Ben Ami, 57, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri. His wife, Raz, who was also abducted, was released as part of a week-long ceasefire in November 2023. Like Sharabi and Levy, whose depictions of their cruel treatment at the hands of Hamas are coming to light, Ben Ami appeared as though he’d been in a concentration camp.
Another three men deserving of note—and honor—are Israel Defense Forces reservists Maj. Netanel Hershkovitz, Master Sgt. Ori Moshe Borenstein and Master Sgt. Tzvi Matityahu Marantz. Members of the 5460th support unit of the IDF’s 460th Brigade, they were killed on Oct. 10, 2024, in a Hamas ambush on their vehicle in Jabalia. Each had donned his uniform on that fateful Black Sabbath to fight for the country and search for the hostages.
Hershkovitz, 37, a resident of Jerusalem, was survived by his parents, six siblings, a wife and three children.
Borenstein, 32, from Moreshet in northern Israel, was survived by his parents, three siblings and a soon-to-be fiancée.
Marantz, 32, from Bnei Adam, was survived by his parents, two siblings, a wife and three children, the youngest of whom was born halfway through the war.
A third triplet crucial to highlight is that of Wael Qassem, 54, Wassam Abbasi, 48, and Mohammed Odeh, 52—all Hamasniks from eastern Jerusalem with blood on their hands. Key players in the Second Intifada, they were convicted in 2002 and sentenced to multiple life terms for orchestrating some of the deadliest attacks on Israeli civilians, including the bombing at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in which nine people were killed.
As part of the ceasefire deal, they were released from prison on Jan. 25 and exiled to Egypt, where their families intend to join them. A nice, neat happy ending for savages who are bound to reoffend at the glimpse of an opportunity. For them, there is no “day after”—only an ongoing campaign to repeat the Oct. 7 atrocities “again and again.”
Which brings us to future targets of terrorist rape, arson, decapitation and abduction. Their faces aren’t on placards and T-shirts because we don’t yet know who they are. We can be certain, however, that it’s just a matter of time before we’re bemoaning their plight. Negotiating with Hamas, through Egypt and the terrorist state Qatar, guarantees it.
Despite having its capabilities severely weakened, Hamas still holds the cards that allow it to call critical shots. Hopefully, Trump’s sudden shuffling of the deck that his predecessor had stacked against Israel will lead to a return of all remaining hostages and the eradication of Hamas power.
Any other scenario—such as going through with the next two phases of capitulation—will encourage Hamas to believe in its mantra of “We’re the flood; we’re the day after.”
