After nearly seven weeks in captivity, 24 hostages seized by Hamas in its deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel are now free after crossing into Egypt. In exchange, Israel released 39 Palestinians hours later at the city of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldOPM
      76·
      10 months ago

      They don’t.

      Hamas demanded the release of convicted prisoners. Most are for relatively minor violent offenses like throwing stones at police or soldiers. Many of them are prosecuted under military law, as they may not be citizens of Israel, which has been a point of criticism.

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        85·
        10 months ago

        They do. Some NGO’s estimates think that up to 12000 Palestinians are held by Israel, a huge chunk without trial nor conviction. But it includes nearly 500 children, some as young as 12 years old. Your CNN article is a bit more conservative citing over 8,000, 350 children and 3,000 without trial. But Israel is not exactly transparent with their process and a lot more are missing with suspected detention. They also regularly torture and rape all the Palestinian prisoners, including the children, or “prisoners under 18 years old” as Israel likes to call them.

        EDIT: Grammar.

        • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldOPM
          55·
          10 months ago

          As I mentioned, it has been a point of criticism. I’m afraid I don’t have sources for everything you’ve claimed here, but I’d be interested in seeing them. Why is there such disparity in the numbers? Why does CNN not use the NGO numbers if they are reliable?

          Stone throwing is a common form of protest in Israel and rarely results in serious injury. Nonetheless, it carries up to 20 years prison sentence. There is a ridiculously high conviction rate, and little or no legal representation, minors are often interrogated without parents, etc. etc.

          It’s probably not accurate to call them “Hostages.” More like wrongful conviction? I’m not sure the best term. Probably why the article avoids it.

          • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
            84·
            10 months ago

            If they’re the result of an illegal, internationally condemned occupation, lack conviction and are ethnically motivated to politically subjugate a group of people. They are hostages.

            • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldOPM
              45·
              10 months ago

              Even if all of that’s true, which we can disagree about, that’s still not the definition of a hostage. Maybe the term you’re looking for is political prisoner. Words have meanings, and you can’t just make up new definitions to suit the situation that best aligns with your politics.

              • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
                32·
                10 months ago

                Well, let’s look at the definition of Hostage, according to the Merrian-Webster dictionary a Hostage is:

                a: a person held by one party in a conflict as a pledge pending the fulfillment of an agreement

                b: a person taken by force to secure the taker’s demands

                Interesting, let’s look further, at the Encyclopedia Britannica:

                a person handed over by one of two belligerents to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement or for preventing violation of the law of war.

                Fascinating. Let’s contrast this with what Britannica says about Political Prisoners:

                a person who is imprisoned because that person’s actions or beliefs are contrary to those of his or her government. […] In practice, political prisoners often cannot be distinguished from other types of prisoners.

                Well, considering that the majority of Palestinians detained by Israel are held by the army as military prisoners as they are not considered citizens, therefore they didn’t even had any political rights or are considered under the government jurisdiction. I would say one term applies, but the other doesn’t. I agree that, words do have meanings. You can’t just make up new definitions to suit the situation that best aligns with your politics.