Former IDF Commander: Video of Captive Israeli Meant to Strengthen Hamas’ Hand Ahead of Biden Visit

Senior Hamas figure says it’s meant is return the Palestinian issue to the international agenda

Hamas on Tuesday released a video of Hisham al-Sayed, an Israeli civilian held captive in the Gaza Strip since 2015. The video shows Sayed connected to oxygen, suggesting that his health has deteriorated.

According to reports in the Lebanese media, Hamas has offered to exchange Sayed in return for all the ill Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails.

Sayed, from the Bedouin town of Hura, near Beersheba, suffers from schizophrenia. He crossed into Gaza on his own in April 2015 and has been held captive ever since.

Sayed crossed into Gaza Strip twice before and was returned. Earlier, he served in the IDF for several months and was discharged from service.

In addition to Sayed, Hamas currently holds captive Avera Mengistu, a mentally ill Ethiopian Israeli who crossed into Gaza in September 2014. The terrorist organization also holds the bodies of two Israeli soldiers who were killed in action in Gaza during the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge military offensive in 2014, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin.

This is the first time that Hamas has released a video of Sayed.

Yaron Buskila, the secretary-general of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF) and a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, believes the timing of the video is no coincidence.

Buskila, a former deputy brigade commander, battalion commander, and commander of the Southern Command infantry training base, told The Media Line there are a few possible reasons for Hamas releasing the footage now.

First, he noted that the eighth anniversary of Operation Protective Edge is upon us.

“They want to remind us that Hamas had some victories from this operation and that it still has some prisoners in their hands,” he said.

Second, Buskila continued, there’s US President Joe Biden’s visit next month.

He explained that Biden will visit Israel and the Palestinian territories soon, where one of his objectives is to strengthen the Palestinian Authority’s position, and Hamas is trying to gain points among the Arab population in the West Bank.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas is very ill, he said, “and we don’t know what will happen when he passes away. Hamas wants to take control of Judea and Samaria.”

Buskila noted that releasing prisoners would be a very important achievement and a high priority on the Palestinian agenda. “We can say that releasing one single prisoner counts even more than launching 1000 rockets into Israel,” he said.

The last reason that Buskila discussed relates to Iran.

Tehran is very close to a nuclear agreement with the EU and the US, he said. During the last year, he added, Hamas became very weak in the eyes of Iran because it pushed the terrorist group to fire rockets into Israel, especially during Ramadan, and Hamas didn’t do it since it would have been blamed by Gazans for the damage Israeli retaliation would have caused in the Strip.

“So Iran pushed Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ] to launch rockets, and they did it. So PIJ became much stronger among Palestinian society in Gaza and Judea and Samaria,” Buskila said.

Ahmed Yousef, a former senior adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told The Media Line he believes the timing of the video is related to the organization’s desire to return the Palestinian issue to the global agenda.

Nobody is talking about it anymore, he said. “The Israelis are busy with their internal problems, they are changing the government and they will have new elections, and nobody is paying attention to the Palestinian issue.

“They [Hamas] did it to make some people at least talk about it. After the Ukrainian war, it seems like everybody forgot the Palestinian issue,” Yousef continued.

He added that Hamas released the video to raise awareness of Sayed’s declining health.

“They tried to raise the issue, and they are bringing the world’s attention to the situation, so that if anything goes wrong, Israel will be blamed, not Hamas or the Palestinians,” Yousef said.

Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, also told The Media Line that one possible reason for the release of the video is to shift the blame for Sayed’s poor health to Israel.

“It could be true that Hisham al-Sayed is facing health problems and Hamas basically wanted to tell the Israeli public and the Israeli government that it’s not Hamas’s responsibility if his health deteriorates or if anything bad happens to him,” the professor said.

The other possibility, Abusada continued, is that Hamas released the video to push for a prisoner swap.

“It could just be a matter of trying to create some kind of conflict and place political pressure on the government from the Israeli public to push for a prisoner swap,” he said.

The prisoner issue has been very much neglected, he continued. “There have been a lot of talks over the past few years, but in my opinion, it has been neglected.

“No Israeli government has had the courage to strike a deal with Hamas,” Abusada said.

Buskila said, however, that Israel has not neglected the issue. Rather the country has reasons not to accept Hamas’ prisoner exchange proposals.

“I don’t think that it’s correct” that Israel has neglected the issue, he said, “because the last time when we released 1,000 [actually 1,027 – D.M.] prisoners in the case of [IDF tank gunner] Gilad Schalit [in 2011], more than 80% of them returned to terrorism. We understood the price of releasing prisoners who were involved in terrorism.”

From the IDSF’s perspective, Buskila continued, “what we think is that the Israeli government should have a very strong policy against terrorist organizations. That there should be no release of convicted terrorists with Israeli blood on their hands because it fuels future terrorism.”

Sha’aban al-Sayed, Hisham’s father, said in an interview with Radio 103 FM that he doubts his son is really in bad physical health as Hamas claims. He noted that Hisham had psychiatric problems but not any physical condition.

Buskila is also skeptical that Hamas is telling the truth about Sayed. “I don’t know exactly what the condition of his health is,” he said, “but I believe that it’s not exactly as they make it look. They just released this video to push Israel.”

He added that Hamas should not hold civilians captive, “especially not in this condition, nor should it hold soldiers’ bodies, because that cannot contribute to solving the problems between Israel and the Palestinians.”