In the Media

A sickening empty feeling accompanies the Gaza ceasefire as scores of terrorists likely to commit more atrocities against the Jewish people are freed from prison

Sky News Australia – January 20, 2025

There’s a scene in the movie Schindler’s List when the German businessman Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, decides, after witnessing the horrors perpetrated on the Jews, to dedicate himself fully to saving lives.

He tasks his Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern, played by Ben Kingsley, with typing a list of names —“essential workers” who would labour in his factory. But this was no ordinary list.

The approximately 1,100 names on it included old men, young women, and even little children.

To be on that list was to have a chance at survival—a shield against the relentless death machine of Nazi Germany.

When Stern finishes typing the list, he holds it up and says in a quiet, powerful voice, “The list is life.”

I thought of that scene after the names of 33 Israeli hostages, set to be released in the first phase of a hostage-ceasefire deal, were made public.

Thirty-three names—old men, young women, and even little children.

Yet on this list, we don’t even know who is alive and who is dead.

Such is the cruelty of Hamas, which has spent every moment torturing the families of those they abducted, including when with just hours to go, delayed releasing the names of the first three hostages to be released for “technical reasons”.

It tears at every fibre of our collective soul, tormenting us by day and haunting us by night.

Knowing that our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons are languishing in terror tunnels of hell—living or dying at the whim of the most evil monsters on Earth—is maddening.

Yet to see our first three hostages, Emily, Romi and Doron, emerge from that darkness into the light illustrates what this war is truly about.

We cannot even begin to imagine the suffering they have endured.

Their scars—both physical and mental—will take months, years, even decades to heal, if they ever do.

These same scars will be etched into the State of Israel, which, few would argue, failed in its most fundamental duty: to protect its people.

These national wounds, too, will take months, years, and decades to heal—if they ever can.

It’s hard to call this a good deal.

In exchange for the return of innocent hostages, Israel is releasing scores of terrorists, many with blood on their hands.

Most will likely return to their atrocities, making Israelis less safe.

It is a sickening empty feeling.

And yet, in the Jewish ethos, life is sacred.

Saving a life is the highest duty of all, one that permits almost every law to be broken.

Even so, the price of this deal is excruciatingly high.

Hamas will undoubtedly claim this as a victory, absurd as that may seem when its leadership has been decimated, its infrastructure destroyed, and Gaza lies in ruins.

For Hamas, mere survival is considered victory.

Meanwhile, Jew-hatred has exploded worldwide.

Attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions are now so commonplace that they are no longer shocking but expected.

In Australia, one of the world’s most tolerant nations, the Jewish community has been left reeling, confronting levels of antisemitism never before encountered.

We are truly living in an era reminiscent of our grandparents’ time—when they were hounded, harassed, and attacked simply for being Jews.

Some escaped the murderous pogroms and death camps of Europe.

The rest did not.

The international community’s failure has compounded this trauma.

Much of the world has turned its back on Israel—a liberal democracy fighting for its survival on the frontlines of terror, so the rest of the world doesn’t have to.

Instead of prioritising the hostages, they’ve focused almost exclusively on criticising Israel and calling for ceasefires.

This is a mark of shame that can never be erased.

But whatever happens now and in the future through deals and negotiations, we must never forget how this all began.

On the morning of October 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdering, raping, and burning men, women, and children.

They killed parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents, filming their atrocities with unbridled joy.

Hamas is a sadistic terrorist group that cannot be trusted, and the next few weeks as the hostages are cruelly drip-fed to a desperate country, Israel will be tested like never before.

So perhaps, as those hostages continue to be released, as we desperately hope they all will be, we should be focusing on those moments of joy—the elation of being home again, surrounded by love and warmth, giving meaning to the list as a symbol of life.

We have no choice, because in a world so dark, we must cherish these rare and precious moments deeply, even as we brace ourselves for the inevitable pain that lies ahead.

Justin Amler is a Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council