The 7 October atrocities in Israel have given rise to the largest-scale hostage crisis in the country’s 75-year history.
Two-hundred-and-fifty-one people were captured and taken into Gaza by Hamas militants in October 2023, according to the Israeli military. After six were released on 22 February, 63 are still there.
During the first phase of the current ceasefire negotiations, 33 hostages were earmarked for release in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
This is far from Israel’s first hostage crisis. During the wider Arab-Israeli conflict, armed Palestinian groups have repeatedly taken Israeli citizens captive.
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Before now, the vast majority were Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers, who have been used by various groups to secure the release of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
While its Western allies have strict policies on never negotiating with hostage takers, Israel takes a different view.
Here Sky News looks at its complex history with hostage negotiations and how it has dealt with similar incidents in the past.
‘Unwritten contract’ between Israel and its people
The taking of hostages has long been a feature of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Armed Palestinian groups have used Israel’s commitment to its people as a bargaining measure to achieve their aims since people were displaced and many killed in the ‘Nakba’ of 1948.
Dr Melanie Garson, associate professor in international conflict resolution and security at University College London, says: “They know the value Israel has always placed on every single life and the explicit promise between the government and the people that they would never leave anyone behind enemy lines.
“That comes from being a very small state fighting for its existence and from the Holocaust when so many people were left unknown.”
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The state’s “unwritten contract” with its people also has origins in Jewish law.
The Amidah, a prayer recited three times a day by practicing Jews, refers to God “freeing the captives”. Jewish scripture also prioritises freeing prisoners above feeding the poor.
And safely returning hostages, even those not alive, means the appropriate burial rituals in Judaism can be respected.
Munich massacre
One of the most famous incidents involving Israeli hostages was during the Munich Olympic Games in 1972.
It was carried out by eight members of the Black September organisation, a militant Palestinian group formed in 1970 that took its name from the war between Jordan and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
They broke into the Olympic village and at around 4am on 5 September they reached where the Israeli team were staying.
As they drew their weapons a German wrestling judge Yossef Gutfreund tried to intervene and was shot dead.
Two Israelis were killed and nine others, including athletes and coaches, were taken hostage.
The hostage takers’ demands were the release of 234 Palestinian prisoners, as well as members of the German terror group Red Army Faction (RAF), and a plane to take the hostages to an Arab country.
The German and Israeli authorities provided vehicles to take them to a NATO air base where they could then travel by helicopter.
But in a failed rescue attempt all nine hostages and five of the assailants were killed.
Israel launched a military offensive, which they named ‘Wrath of God’, in response four days later. PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon were bombed and 200 people were killed.
Entebbe
Four years later on 27 June 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by three men and a woman who were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and RAF militant groups.
The plane refuelled in Benghazi, Libya, before disembarking in Entebbe, Uganda, at 4am the next day.
All 258 people on board were taken to a disused airport terminal under the watch of Ugandan soldiers.
Initially, 47 elderly people, women and children were released, followed by about 100 non-Israelis.
Around 100 Israelis were left, whom the hostage takers said they would let go in exchange for 53 prisoners.
The Israelis refused to negotiate and instead, with the help of Mossad intelligence and the Kenyan authorities, they organised a rescue operation.
Codenamed Operation Thunderbolt, it was led by Benjamin Netanyahu‘s brother Yonatan.
The raid was successful – almost all of the hostages were rescued and all seven of those holding them were killed.
The only Israeli casualty was Yonatan Netanyahu.
Gilad Shalit
Before the current crisis, the most recent high-profile Israeli hostage was in 2006 when 19-year-old Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier, was captured in an attack on the post he was stationed at close to the Egyptian and Gaza borders.
After two tank operators were killed and a third wounded, Mr Shalit was taken into Gaza via Hamas-dug underground tunnels.
He was held by members of Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Army of Islam over a period of five years.
His family’s campaign for his return spread around the world, with his father impressing on the Israeli authorities: “The government sent Gilad to fight. It must bring him back.”
Mr Shalit was released on 18 October 2011.
It was the first time an IDF soldier had been returned alive since 1985.
The prisoner exchange was also the largest in history – more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners were released over the next two months, including former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who the Israeli military claims to have killed last year.
During his time in captivity, there were heavy bombardments in both Israel and Gaza.
Past ‘no precedent’ for predicting this outcome
In the past, when there has been enough intelligence to show hostages’ exact whereabouts, the Israelis have launched rescue operations.
But the complete surprise of the 7 October abductions, meant militants were able to cross the Gaza border quickly and enter its vast network of underground tunnels with the people they kidnapped before the IDF could trace them.
This has left Israel with negotiating for their return.
Professor David Tal, chair of modern Israeli studies at the University of Sussex, says the current situation is so “beyond” the usual parameters of the Arab-Israeli conflict there has been little telling how Israel or the hostage takers will act.
“The nature of this attack was so atrocious, so brutal, it means the past isn’t a precedent that can tell us how it will eventually turn out,” he says.
After two Israeli hostages appeared in a video, seemingly having been forced to watch a group of others be freed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the planned release of Palestinian prisoners was being postponed – “until the release of the next hostages is secured”.
Among his reasons, he cited Hamas’s “disgraceful and humiliating” handover procedures, whereby hostages appear on stage in front of crowds before being transferred to the Red Cross, and the use of them for “propaganda” purposes – in an apparent reference to the video.
Hamas “strongly condemned” the decision, claiming Israel was using “flimsy excuses” not to honour the ceasefire agreement. They denied their handover ceremonies constitute maltreatment, despite the UN and world leaders’ objections to them.
But as the first phase of the ceasefire approached its end, Hamas agreed to return the bodies of four Israeli hostages taken on 7 October in return for the 620 prisoners.
Among them were 445 men, 24 women, and minors arrested in Gaza, as well as 151 prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.
