The capture of dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians — elderly women, children, entire families — by Hamas militants has stirred Israeli emotions more viscerally than any crisis in the country’s recent memory and presented an impossible dilemma for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
The Islamist militant group’s 2006 seizure of a sole young conscript, Gilad Shalit, consumed Israeli society for years — a national obsession that prompted Israel to heavily bombard the Gaza Strip and ultimately release over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom had been convicted of deadly attacks on Israelis, in exchange for Shalit’s freedom.
