Gazan Insists If Reward For Releasing Hostages Were $5,000,001 Instead Of Measly $5M, He’d Have Jumped At It

Some versions of the offer also included safe passage out of Gaza.

Khan Yunis, March 31 – A resident of this southern city justified his and his fellow Palestinians’ refusal to help Israel free its citizens from Hamas captivity in exchange for instant wealth, by explaining that the amount on offer did not quite reach the threshold where the effort would be worth it, but had the amount gone slightly higher, he would be happy to offer information on the captives’ whereabouts.

Khaled Masri, 50, managed to conduct a telephone conversation with a journalist based outside the blockaded territory yesterday, in which the father of seven tried to explain why the complete absence of Gazans willing to give information about or actively work for the release of, Israelis held in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, when doing so would result in a five million dollar reward. Masri called the sum insufficient.

“Five million and one would make it better, more reasonable,” he observed. “You’re not going to find anyone here who’d take such a risk for a measly five mil. It’s just not worth it.”

Commentators had voiced surprise not just that Gazans refused, to a man, to help any of the starved, abused, injured Israelis – when even in Nazi Germany and Nazi-collaborationist countries, thousands of locals helped Jews hide or escape persecution – but that even an inducement that would set anyone, financially, for life, failed to produce even a single taker. Some versions of the offer also included safe passage out of Gaza for those who help, to protect them from vengeful, oppressive Hamas enforcers and supporters, if anyone found out.

Hamas and Palestinian civilians took more than 250 hostages during the October 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel, when they also killed more than 1200 and perpetrated massive rape, torture, looting, and vandalism. After negotiated deals and several rescue operations since then, now fewer than sixty remain, most of those assumed dead already. Some were initially held by families in their homes, but intelligence assessments now place the surviving hostages in Hamas tunnels or strongholds. Even before Hamas threatened to kill all remaining hostages if Israel attempts another rescue mission, precisely zero Palestinian civilians offered so much as an oblique hint as the whereabouts of the Israelis.

The blanket refusal to assist in hostage release, even for enormous wealth, has posed a challenge for people insisting that the brutal Hamas does not represent Palestinians. The brave activists have met this challenge by ignoring it.

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