The Difference Between a Prisoner of War and a Hostage

Typically, when the fog of war lifts and one side seems to be the victor, the defeated combatants surrender and the warring parties return their prisoners of war to each country.

However, the war Hamas initiated against Israel’s civilian population on October 7 — the atrocities they committed, and their taking of hundreds of hostages — was anything but typical.

At the outset, it is important to note the difference between a prisoner of war (POW) and a hostage.

According to the Geneva Convention, a POW is a captured combatant protected by international humanitarian law, who the warring parties must release and repatriate without delay once hostilities have ceased.

A hostage, however, is a non-combatant seized by criminals and terrorists. Their purpose is to extort concessions and force others to comply with their demands.

Israel takes prisoners of war; Hamas and their Palestinian Arab enablers take hostages.

The rules of war, as defined by the Geneva Convention, have not changed — but the nature of war has.

The goal of the Geneva Convention was to limit the effects of armed conflict and to minimize suffering and protect non-combatants. Key principles include targeting only military objectives, not civilians; proportionality to avoid excessive harm to civilians; and prohibiting unnecessary suffering and inhumane treatment. Hamas and its supporters not only break every one of these rules, but they purposely contravene each one of them as part of their strategy of terror.

The inhumane tactics they employ are not new; they hearken back thousands of years when the Torah records an event of abject cowardice and cruelty: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt, how they surprised you on the road and cut off all the weak people at your rear, when you were parched and weary, and they did not fear G‑d.” (Devarim 25:17)

Today’s version of Amalek are the inhumane terrorists of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists, who routinely employ hostage taking as a weapon. The hostages they seize are not only civilians, but include the most vulnerable of persons such as seniors, the disabled, children, and infants.

The radical Islamic terrorists of Hamas target civilians as hostages, knowing full well that Israel’s citizenry will place tremendous pressure on its administration for the return of the innocent hostages. And because Hamas knows that Israelis and Jews value life above all else, they insist on keeping civilian hostages, as they serve as both an insurance policy and not-so-secret weapon.

The barbaric cruelties Hamas and their Palestinian Arab terrorist allies visited upon Israel, is proof-positive that evil abides by no rules and knows neither bounds nor boundaries.

There is an expression in Hebrew, Ein Breira, “there is no choice” — and this applies to dealing with the kinds of evil Hamas wreaked upon Israel on Oct 7. There is no choice but to eliminate the will and capabilities of Hamas and their radical Palestinian Arab collaborators who wish to deny the Jewish people their basic right to life.

Since retiring from IBM, Steve Wenick has served as a freelance book reviewer for HarperCollins Publishing and Simon & Schuster. His reviews and articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Algemeiner, Times of Israel, Philadelphia Inquirer, Attitudes Magazine, and The Jewish Voice of Southern New Jersey.