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By Arlene Bridges Samuels

As if the tortures that began on October 7, 2023, were not enough, Hamas has been staging more versions of traumatizing evil. In the “ceasefire agreement,” the terror group is producing, directing, and filming hostage releases in a chaotic rampage of hate from thousands of Gazan “extras” seemingly overjoyed to be part of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad propaganda.

For 16 months now, the Jewish nation and people have undergone repeated traumas—including the brutal Hamas invasion and massacre on October 7, family members and loved ones taken hostage into Gaza, and the existential multifront war with Iran and its evil terror proxies. And if that were not enough, Jew hatred and hostility against the world’s only Jewish nation have been at an all-time high across the globe with toxic expressions everywhere—on public streets, college campuses, and social media newsfeeds.

The Red Cross vehicles dispatched to drive hostages out of Gaza inch their way to the location where the precious hostage passengers will disembark into safety at last. Unbelievably, the cars are considered objects of potential attacks from terrorists, both uniformed and civilian, who jump on the roofs enthusiastically waving their weapons.

Hostages are pushed, shoved, and taunted by waves of jubilant Palestinians holding their mobile phones high to record the event. Every Palestinian acting out such dangerous theatrics looks well fed and happy. There are no signs of mourning for the so-called genocide that Hamas claims and that much of the world believes. The crowds do not look starved, since Hamas has been hijacking tons of donated food and reselling it to their own people at exorbitant prices.

Despite the massive destruction of buildings that Hamas brought on its brainwashed population, the Palestinians seem addicted to whatever “high” they get from holding such hatred against their Israeli neighbors. When each hostage steps out of the cars, one can only wonder why the Red Cross is allowing the hostages to disembark into the seething, shouting crowds. Isn’t there another way to release them at the edge of Gaza into Israel?

In one instance, on February 1, 2025, Hamas released Gadi Mozes (80) and Arbel Yehoud (29). In photos taken by the Hamas Media Office/AFP, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) cars are well marked with the logo and the words “Comite International Geneve” (i.e., International Committee Geneve), with the well-known red cross in the center. But more about the Red Cross in a moment.

For 16 months, with hostages both alive and dead in Gaza, Hamas’s depravity and brutality roams in the darkness of Gaza’s underground city and is spilling out into the open again, with terrorists released from Israeli prisons as part of the ceasefire “deal.” The terror group seems to know no bounds in their toxic hatred for the Jewish nation and people.

Under God’s inspiration, the famous prophet wrote in Isaiah 5:20, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

The Hamas terror group never allowed the Red Cross to check on kidnapped hostages’ conditions and health or provide much-needed medicines. The Red Cross claims it tried. Nevertheless, Israelis dismissively call this international humanitarian organization agency a “glorified taxi service,” while the ICRC comments that it “has little power beyond what belligerent parties afford it.”

Years ago, in a statement about their neutrality policy, the ICRC acknowledged their silence in World War II. They said they failed to speak out on behalf of the millions of people who suffered and perished in the death camps, especially the Jewish people targeted, persecuted and murdered under the Nazi regime. A former ICRC president said that it was their “greatest failure” since their founding in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1863. Now, their organizational silence has failed them once again.

The ICRC has made sure to condemn Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals, yet no mention at all is made about Hamas terrorists—disguised as doctors—purposely occupying hospitals and using those facilities as a terror base. Or how ongoing hostilities have obliterated the healthcare system in northern Gaza. Nor does the ICRC mention that Israel safely evacuates Palestinian patients to other facilities, even outside Gaza, before going after the occupiers. The Hamas-run media office has skillfully used the hospitals as propaganda. Those who are easily fooled cannot distinguish between good and evil.

In a recently released report, Israel’s Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children has created a new word, “kinocide”—the targeting of families. Experts from the Civil Commission, which was formed immediately after October 7, explained that Nazi genocide was directed against a group of people—“national, ethnical, racial or religious”—according to the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention.

However, kinocide, another crime against humanity, is a specific assault against a group, “using the relationship between family members and their emotional, identity, cultural, symbolic, material and other bonds, as a way to maximize the intended harm of the attack.” Thus, the traumas on October 7, 2023—with the deaths of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250 men, women, children, infants, the elderly, and disabled people—were triumphantly filmed by Hamas. The terror group has deepened their ongoing cruelty by not releasing the list of deceased loved ones. Uncertainty surely deepens trauma.

In reality, a series of events began in secret after September 22, 2005, when Israel evacuated its 9,000 Jewish residents from Gaza and donated it lock, stock, and barrel to Palestinians. They set about destroying everything Jews left behind to help them. Destruction is terror’s middle name. That is why Arab countries do not want to resettle Gazan Palestinians.

From 2005 until today, Palestinians have abandoned the dream of self-determination and creating a beautiful, productive Palestinian state for its children and grandchildren. Instead, they built a dark underground city filled with every weapon the Islamic Regime patron could smuggle into its terrorist operations. Nothing has changed. Hatred and destruction are still idolized.

The 79-page Israel Civil Commission’s report on October 7 is now in the hands of 300 very influential leaders at the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual summit for international government and military officials, academic experts, authors, and entrepreneurs, held in Nova Scotia, Canada. Will leaders affirm the findings recorded by Hamas villains beginning on October 7, 2023? Or will the world’s Jew haters once again ignore or vilify Israel and Jews worldwide?

Our CBN Israel team invites you to pray with us this week:

• Pray for remaining hostages and their families while the horror movie is repeated.
• Pray for leaders and institutions to receive the Israeli 10/7 Commission report as truth.
• Pray for worldwide media to report the facts in the 10/7 Commission report.
• Pray that those seeking news will refer to trustworthy Christian media and other factual outlets.

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide. In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.