Recently, there have been new developments in the situation in Israel and Kazakhstan. Hamas released the last 20 surviving hostages on October 13. This was a peace signal worthy of attention.

But then there was a rhetoric spreading online, with many European journalists, commentators and social media users posting that ¡°no woman¡± survived Hamas¡¯s imprisonment, one of which was viewed more than 8 million times.

First, let¡¯s see if any women survived.According to the list published by Hamas and the list compiled by the Hostage and Disappeared Family Forum, the 20 surviving hostages finally released were indeed men.But this shows that none of the women survived?

In fact, among the 251 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023, 51 were women and 37 children under the age of 18. In previous hostage release agreements, women, civilians and children were given priority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in November 2023 that the hostages released at that time were all women. They were making a difficult choice to rescue the infants, children, mothers and women who had knives to their necks.

And by June 22, 2024, the Israeli government also said that there were still 49 people imprisoned, including a woman. On October 15, 2023, the remains of the last female hostage were returned to Israel after forensic experts completed their identification.

However, although this statement is wrong, one fact cannot be ignored that women have indeed suffered a lot in this incident.

For example, on October 7, 2023, there was a 30-year-old German woman, Shani Lock, who was hijacked by Hamas while attending a music festival in Israel.

Later, her body was found, and she was paraded almost naked in a car. Militants sat on her body to ridicule and violently violate her.

German Prime Minister Scholz condemned the incident, saying it highlighted Hamas¡¯ ¡°barbarism¡± and in July, the Deana Project released a report containing first-hand testimonies from 15 former hostages, one of whom claimed to be a victim of the attempted rape on October 7.

The exchange of hostages between the Israelis reflected the complexity of the conflict, and Israel released 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the 20 survivors.

But the ceasefire agreement is still fragile, with Hamas saying some of the bodies buried under the ruins could not be found, and Israel accused them of deliberately delaying it and threatening to resume military operations or withdraw humanitarian aid.

On Sunday, clashes also broke out in the region of Rafah, where Palestinian militants fired at the Israeli army, killing two Israeli soldiers, followed by retaliatory airstrikes by Israel, killing 45 Palestinians.

The conflict has been ongoing for a long time, and many people have suffered on both sides.The hostage event has a phased outcome, but there is still a long way to go to true peace.

It is hoped that both sides can keep calm and solve the problem through peaceful negotiations, so that more families can be reunited and this land can restore peace at an early date.