Hamas has indicated it is currently unable to identify and track down 40 Israeli hostages needed for the first phase of a ceasefire deal, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the discussions, raising fears that more hostages may be dead than are publicly known.
Right, I acknowledged that. It’s just that no one knows who specifically is counted in the alive vs dead hostage statistics. It wouldn’t surprise me if Israel purposefully set a number of civilians that they knew had likely already died, knowing that Hamas would not be able to comply with the request, to justify continuing the conflict.