Orthodox Jewish men stand near a tank, ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal is a massive and crippling defeat for Israel. There is no other way to frame it.

After 15 months of fighting, the best deal Israel could secure was releasing 57 Palestinian criminals and murderers for every Israeli hostage.

Judging from a partial list of those being released, it seems very likely that far more than 98 Israelis will die as a result of this deal.

It is also clear that Israel has failed in its war aims to eradicate Hamas from Gaza and replace it with a new government. The war didn’t establish a deterrent to future terrorism; in fact, this hostage deal will likely *increase* the risk of terrorism, especially hostage-taking.

As Palestinian Media Watch has pointed out, the seeds of the October 7 massacre were planted in 2011, when Israel exchanged 1,027 Palestinian terrorists and murderers for one living Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

The terrorists released in 2011 went on to kill or aid in the murder of more than a thousand Israelis, and planned the October 7 massacre itself. (Yahya Sinwar was one of those released in 2011; similarly, many terrorist leaders and masterminds are being released this time).

The Gilad Shalit deal taught the Palestinian people one critical lesson: kidnapping Israelis works.

Now, once again, Palestinians are seeing the fruits of their labors with the absurd release of 1,900 Palestinian terrorists and prisoners for 33 Israelis (who aren’t even all alive).

Of course, we all want to see the 98 Israeli hostages come home — but the definition of insanity is to repeat the same policy and expect a different result; yet, that’s exactly what Israel has done.

It seems mind-boggling that Israel could not extract a better terrorist-to-hostage ratio than 57:1 after 15 months of fighting in Gaza.

Even a 5-to-1 ratio would have seemed reasonable. Yet Hamas got 11 times that, which suggests that — contrary to the claims of the Israeli government — Hamas’ capabilities have not been degraded. If Hamas had been truly weakened, Israel could have secured a much better deal.

Between future kidnapping attempts — and acts of terrorism that will be committed by the thousands of murderers and terrorists being released — it’s virtually guaranteed that far more than 98 Israelis will die in the future because of this deal. (And remember, at least 34 of those Israeli hostages are already dead).

Israel’s ethos of bringing all its people home is a beautiful one; but beauty isn’t always the answer in the face of a barbaric, unrelenting, and sadistic enemy that is determined to murder every Jew in Israel.

Perhaps one could argue that Israel owes these 98 people a special duty, since the country failed them spectacularly on October 7. But doesn’t the Israeli government owe the guarantee of life and safety to nine million people in Israel?

Israel’s government had the obligation to choose the outcome that saved the most lives. But years from now, it will become very clear that this deal took more lives than it saved.

So many innocent children, women, and men will be lost — but it seems less tragic, because we can’t see their faces yet.

If Israel really wanted to bring those hostages home at any cost, it should have prosecuted the war in a completely different way (to achieve a better hostage deal or an actual victory) — and it should be treating Palestinian terrorists and murderers in a completely different way than we are now.

Some have suggested that Phase 1 of the deal is just a ploy to get some hostages back — and that once it’s completed, Israel will continue its war in Gaza apace. That seems unlikely given the exhaustion of Israel’s military, the international pressure that will be mounted against it, and various other factors. And even if that does happen — we still will have released hundreds of murderers and terrorist masterminds; Israeli soldiers will be at much greater risk than they were before; and it’s hard to believe Israel can accomplish what it hasn’t in 15 months absent a severe change of strategy, or more troops and resources.

Others have blamed this hostage deal on the United States — yet Prime Minister Netanyahu showed that he was able to resist pressure from the Biden administration at almost every turn. Either Trump is not the loyal friend of Israel he claims to be, or Netanyahu chose not to expend his political capital to fight for a better outcome. If nothing else, the deal sheds light on Netanyahu’s weakness, and Trump’s interest in being a “dealmaker” rather than the loyal advocate of Israel that many had hoped for.

Overall, this deal signals one thing: Israel’s weakness, both geostrategically, and among its political leadership.

More terror will result from this deal — and we can only hope that it’s not worse than October 7, 2023.

We must also hope that Israel finally finds competent leadership that avoids the extremes of the far-right and far-left, but acts with common sense — and the best interest of all nine million Israeli citizens — as its guiding policy.

The author is a political commentator and political analyst.