Commenting on those same images from the Gaza Strip, Melanie Phillips describes how Hamas made an “obscene spectacle” out of the release of the hostages:
Look at that horrifying footage of those Gaza mobs, those enormous potential lynch mobs jeering and threatening the three Israeli women as they were handed over to the Red Cross—the same mobs who abused the live hostages and desecrated the bodies of the murdered ones when they were all dragged into Gaza after the October 7 massacre; look at that footage and then tell us all again that the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza are innocent civilians and victims of the Israelis.
Listen to those mobs chanting ecstatically for the murder of Jews; . . . then watch Sky News report this as a “celebration,” and then begin to understand the depravity of the Western media that’s sanitized this barbarism for fifteen months and demonized its victims.
Look at the thousands who have emerged in Hamas uniform and armed to the teeth, vowing to carry out more and more October 7 massacres until every Jew is dead and Israel is destroyed—Hamas murder squads loudly declaring that they will use the ceasefire to regroup, rearm, and attack Israel; and then listen to the politicians hailing this development as the beginning of peace.
More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas