This is Palestine, in Your Inbox. Trying to make sense of the madness.

The forgotten Palestinians hostages held in Israeli concentration camps

On October 7th, Hamas militants kidnapped more than 245 hostages from towns in southern Israel. Since then, their fate has captured the attention of the world’s media. Foreign Policy, Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and nearly every outlet has published multiple gut wrenching interviews with the families of the kidnapped Israeli victims.

Meanwhile, prominent political figures like Chuck Schumer, Justin Trudeau, Giorgia Meloni, Brian Kemp and many others have met with the Israeli families of the Israeli captivities to give more attention and visibility to their plight. Their pain and trauma must be unimaginable.

Meanwhile, since October 7th, the Israeli military kidnapped as many as 4,500 innocent Palestinians from Gaza in retaliation. These Palestinians had received permits to work in Israel and thus found themselves on the Israeli side of the border during and after the October 7th massacre. Israel canceled their work permits on October 11th, and appears to have embarked on a mission to abduct as many of them as possible since.

Dozens of Gazan Palestinians seeking refuge in a school near Hebron were seen blindfolded and handcuffed, being dragged away into military vehicles, under the cover of darkness. “This is just the beginning,” said an Israeli soldier as he filmed himself kidnapping dozens of innocent people.

Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization, reported that Gazans were detained inside Israel, at Israeli checkpoints, or in other parts of Area A of the West Bank. In other words, the Israeli military went into “Palestinian Authority controlled” areas looking for Gazans.

The Israeli military has failed to reply to requests for information with regard to the whereabouts of at least 4,000 Palestinian workers from Gaza. According to Muhammad Aruri, head of legal affairs for the General Union of Palestinian Workers, they are being “held by Israeli authorities in undetermined locations, with little to no information about their condition, unclear legal status, and denied their right to legal representation.” In a word, they were kidnapped.

Reports have already surfaced of their maltreatment, including torture. According to Palestinian Authority Minister of Labour, Dr. Nasri Abu Jaish, who spoke with a few Gazans who were released, “they’re beaten and scarves are tied around their eyes so they don’t know where they are. Many of them are sick and they don’t give them medicine. They don’t give them water or food. They’re in open-air camps and aren’t allowed to speak to each other.”

Of course, Gazan Palestinians go through extensive security checks to get work permits in Israel. They have no ties to Hamas, no ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, no ties to terrorism.

They are, in a word, innocent, just as innocent as their Israeli counterparts.

But, unlike the Israeli captives, the fate of these captives has not captured the attention of the world’s media. Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and CNN have not published gut wrenching stories with the Gazan Palestinian families of the kidnapped Palestinian victims.

[One wonders, parenthetically, whether journalists would focus on the plight of the abductees in the Israeli concentration camps or the plight of the families of the abductees in the Gaza concentration camp.]

No heads of state or prominent politicians have met with the Palestinian families of the Palestinian hostages abducted and taken to concentration camps.

Save for the Independent, the Tribune and Aljazeera, there has been near complete media silence on the fate of the thousands of Palestinians now languishing in Israeli concentration camps.

By all accounts, the Palestinian hostages are innocent. By all accounts, there are likely 20X the number of Palestinian hostages as Israeli hostages. And, by all accounts, they are being treated at least as worse as the Israeli hostages, with available evidence suggesting they are being treated much worse. And yet the world remains mostly unaware of their very existence.

When the abductees are Israelis, the world stands behind Israel. When the abductees are Palestinians, the world remains unaware there are any victims at. Shocking, but not surprising.

Trying to make sense of the madness.

With love,

-Zach