Amit Segal: If Hamas harms hostages, Israel will retaliate - here's how

Channel 12 reporter and commentator Amit Segal said tonight (Tuesday) that Israel is considering a number of options for retaliating against Hamas if it harms or kills hostages to stop the war. One of these is annexing territory for each hostage killed.

According to Segal, one of the actions being considered if Hamas does not become more flexible on the matter of the hostages and decided to harm or kill hostages to stop the war is this: for every hostage killed, Israel will annex a portion of the Gaza Strip to the State of Israel.

The idea underlying this approach is that Hamas was reportedly far more worried about losing control of territory in the Gaza Strip than losing lives during warfare. Thus, Israel's seizure of control of northern Gaza was a major issue for Hamas during negotiations for a ceasefire and Hamas had to make concessions to secure a return of residents to the area.

Segal also said that in his view, Israel will now settle for nothing less than the Witkoff proposal, per which half the living and slain hostages will be released for the sake of negotiations regarding the second phase of the hostage deal, including possibly ending the war and leading to a full IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip - on condition that Hamas also disarms.