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Women, Children, the Aged, and the Injured First? Male Hostages Shouldn’t Be Forgotten

Families and supporters react as they celebrate the release of Omer Wenkert, a hostage who was held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, on the day of the release of six hostages from captivity in Gaza as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, in Gedera, Israel February 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Rami Shlush

In negotiating the release of about 250 hostages, both living and dead, Israel has prioritized children, women, the aged, and the ill or injured. The prioritization was roughly in that order. Lowest on the list are younger men, and especially those without pre-existing medical conditions and who were not known to be injured on October 7, 2023.

Many people will assume that these are exactly the right priorities. However, there are good reasons for thinking that the matter is much more complicated. This is because every category of hostage is at greater relative risk of some serious harm. The challenge is to decide how to convert these different risk profiles into policy.

Among the reasons for prioritizing children, two main ones stick out. First, barring their captivity, they have the longest remaining life-expectancy, and thus more life-years can be saved by saving them. Second, they are among the least able to cope with captivity, which threatens them both in the moment but also their developmental needs.

There are also reasons for prioritizing women, and especially younger ones. They are arguably at greater risk of sexual assault. There have been reports of male hostages being subjected to such assault, and we still do not yet know the relative risk between the sexes.

While both sexes can be raped, younger females could also become pregnant as a result. The risks and horrors of enduring such a pregnancy and possible consequences are significant.

One reason for prioritizing the aged is that, like children, albeit in different ways, they are less able to cope with the physical assault of captivity conditions. However, there is also a reason to deprioritize older captives. Because their remaining life-expectancy is shorter, fewer life-years are saved.

Like the aged, the ill and injured can have added challenges in enduring and surviving captivity. The severity of the illness or injury affects the degree to which this is true.

These considerations are likely what informed the decisions about which hostages should be released first. However, we should not lose sight of the special risk profile of (younger) men, especially given that even some of the dead have been prioritized over them.

There is ample evidence that there are fewer psycho-social barriers to the infliction of (non-sexual) violence, including death, on males. Indeed, that is exactly why (young) men are so instinctually deprioritized in hostage releases. They may be at less risk in some ways but, as males, they are at more risk in other ways. This has already been acknowledged by one of the recently released young female soldiers, who said “We, the girls, suffered. But the boys and men suffered even more.” Further preliminary evidence is that, of the released hostages, the emaciated ones have been disproportionately male.

Sometimes the deprioritizing of younger males is thought to be justified by their being (combat) soldiers or at least of military age. Even when this is not a direct factor, it can be an indirect one. For example, it might be said that Hamas would be much less likely to release young males first. However, the fact that younger men are disproportionately combat soldiers, or seen to be so, it itself partly the result of a lesser valuing of male lives, and thus further evidence of the special risks faced by young men. Almost all the post-October 7 combat deaths have been male.

Weighing up the different risk profiles in decisions about whom to prioritize for release is an impossibly difficult and tragic choice. The matter is made even more complicated by other considerations, such as the expected timeline for the release of the final hostages.

The shorter the expected period between the initial releases and the final ones, the stronger the case for prioritizing those in more immediate danger. However, if the release of the final hostages is so far in the future that even the fittest young men are unlikely to survive, then the case for prioritizing the aged, for example, becomes weaker.

Obviously, any individual hostage’s risk profile is not determined only by their group characteristics. It can depend on which terror group is holding them, where they are held, whether the Israel Defense Forces is able to rescue them (without mistaking them for terrorists), and innumerable other circumstantial conditions and coincidences. Because these factors are even more unknown, there is less reason to consider them in developing a policy.

There has been some talk of the current policy favoring “humanitarian” cases. That is certainly a mischaracterization. Every hostage is a humanitarian case. (In the case of dead hostages, the main humanitarian considerations are their families’ interests in the return and proper burial of their remains.)

At the end of the first phase of the January-February 2025 hostage and prisoner release agreement, approimatly 27 living, and 32 dead, hostages remain in Gaza. They have been left until last. Some of the dead might not have survived precisely for that reason. For the others, we must hope that being left until last does not also mean that they will not last until they can be released.

David Benatar is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town and currently Visiting Professor at the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto.

The post Women, Children, the Aged, and the Injured First? Male Hostages Shouldn’t Be Forgotten first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Hosts Qatari Prime Minister After Israeli Attack in Doha

Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

US President Donald Trump held dinner with the Qatari prime minister in New York on Friday, days after US ally Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.

Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an attack in Qatar on Tuesday, a strike that risked derailing US-backed efforts to broker a truce in Gaza and end the nearly two-year-old conflict. The attack was widely condemned in the Middle East and beyond as an act that could escalate tensions in a region already on edge.

Trump expressed annoyance about the strike in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sought to assure the Qataris that such attacks would not happen again.

Trump and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani were joined by a top Trump adviser, US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

“Great dinner with POTUS. Just ended,” Qatar’s deputy chief of mission, Hamah Al-Muftah, said on X.

The White House confirmed the dinner had taken place but offered no details.

The session followed an hour-long meeting that al-Thani had at the White House on Friday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

A source briefed on the meeting said they discussed Qatar’s future as a mediator in the region and defense cooperation in the wake of the Israeli strikes against Hamas in Doha.

Trump said he was unhappy with Israel’s strike, which he described as a unilateral action that did not advance US or Israeli interests.

Washington counts Qatar as a strong Gulf ally. Qatar has been a main mediator in long-running negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and for a post-conflict plan for the territory.

Al-Thani blamed Israel on Tuesday for trying to sabotage chances for peace but said Qatar would not be deterred from its role as mediator.

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Trump Urges NATO Countries to Halt Russian Oil Purchases

US President Donald Trump gestures during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Aug. 26, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Ernst via Reuters Connect

i24 NewsUS President Donald Trump issued a letter to NATO nations on Saturday, impressing upon them to stop purchasing Russian oil and impose major sanctions on the regime of Vladimir Putin to end its war in Ukraine.

“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA. As you know, NATO’S commitment to WIN has been far less than 100%, and the purchase of Russian Oil, by some, has been shocking! It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia,” the message read.

“Anyway, I am ready to ‘go’ when you are. Just say when? I believe that this, plus NATO, as a group, placing 50% to 100% TARIFFS ON CHINA, to be fully withdrawn after the WAR with Russia and Ukraine is ended, will also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR. China has a strong control, and even grip, over Russia, and these powerful Tariffs will break that grip.”

Trump’s post comes after the recent flight of multiple Russian drones into Poland, widely perceived an escalatory move by Russia as it was entering the airspace of a NATO ally. Poland intercepted the drones, yet Trump played down the severity of the incident and Russia’s motives by saying it “could have been a mistake.”

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Netanyahu Says Getting Rid of Hamas Chiefs in Qatar Would Remove Main Obstacle to Gaza Deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the US Independence Day reception, known as the annual “Fourth of July” celebration, hosted by Newsmax, in Jerusalem, Aug. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that getting rid of Hamas chiefs living in Qatar would remove the main obstacle to releasing all hostages and ending the war in Gaza.

Israel on Tuesday targeted the Hamas leadership in Doha.

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