Despite the arguments put forward by left-wing imposters after the release this week of Edan Alexander, according to international law, even the IDF soldiers held by Hamas are hostages. This is why – and how the same standards must be applied to the siege and starvation of Gaza

As the American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander was freed on Monday, one truly demented pro-Hamas argument by left-wing imposters has resurfaced: that Hamas seized him as an active-duty soldier, and thus the entire world is hypocritical for referring to him as a hostage. As if changing the terminology to "captive" or "prisoner of war" would justify what Hamas did to Alexander, or the hundreds abducted on October 7, 2023.

The only common standard we have for selecting and using these terms is international law. If anyone thinks international law somehow legitimizes Hamas keeping hold of anyone it took on October 7, they would be wrong: the fact is that even the IDF soldiers that Hamas is holding are hostages by those standards, and holding them is a war crime. Why?

First, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 prohibit hostage-taking. In 1979 the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, which defines the act as holding a person as leverage – or blackmail – to force another party to do, or not do something.

Now, the third Geneva Convention stipulates that it is prohibited to take even a combatant hostage who is not on duty or in uniform, such as the IDF women spotters who were sleeping at 6 A.M. that day, when they were seized in their pajamas, because they are considered hors-de-combat, or incapacitated.

But hostage-taking can also apply to active-duty combatants. Customary International Humanitarian Law - one of the most important sources of international law - is clear on this. The IHL database of the International Committee of the Red Cross explains it, and I've annotated its explanation as a 'Hamas checklist' – all the reasons why holding Alexander was a war crime.

"The International Convention against the Taking of Hostages defines the offence as the seizure or detention of a person (the hostage), combined with threatening to kill, to injure or to continue to detain the hostage, in order to compel a third party to do or to abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage."

*Check: Using detention as leverage is key. Hamas took all 251 hostages in order to compel Israel to release Palestinians that Israel holds, whether lawfully convicted of crimes or not; maybe also to compel Hamas' allies to undertake a war of Armageddon to destroy Israel, and to prevent further Arab states' normalization with Israel.

"The Elements of Crimes for the International Criminal Court [part of the Rome Statute, the legal basis for the International Criminal Court] uses the same definition but adds that the required behaviour of the third party [the hostage's home country, i.e. Israel] could be a condition not only for the release of the hostage but also for the safety of the hostage."

The "Elements of Crimes," part of the Rome Statute, which is the legal basis for the International Criminal Court, specifies that hostage-taking means making demands of the hostages' country as "a condition not only for the release of the hostage but also for the safety of the hostage."

*Check – the hostages have reportedly been severely beaten or otherwise physically, sexually and psychologically abused, both in general and specifically as a reaction to developments in the war or Israel's failure to meet Hamas' demands.

Two points are particularly important: First, once again, hostage taking is a war crime. Article 8 (2) (a) (viii) of the Rome Statute is literally titled: "War crime of taking hostages."

Second, the Customary IHL holds that a hostage is not defined by the fact of being a civilian. Rather, explains the Red Cross database, "It is the specific intent that characterizes hostage-taking and distinguishes it from the deprivation of someone's liberty," – in other words, turning anyone into a wartime bargaining chip makes her or him a hostage.

Not clear enough? The database then states: "There is no indication that the offence is limited to taking civilians hostage. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages do not limit the offence to the taking of civilians, but apply it to the taking of any person."

The Rome Statute specifies that a hostage in these circumstances is anyone protected under any of the Geneva Conventions. Who are these protected people? Well, the Third Geneva Convention is devoted to the protection of prisoners of war. Holding, threatening and abusing them as a bargaining strategy turns them into hostages.

One would imagine that the standards of protection defined in the Geneva Conventions for wartime "captives" or prisoners of war – whose capture is not illegal in itself – should logically be applied even more rigorously to hostages, since it is a crime to hold people hostage. But even if, hypothetically, the soldiers were "only" POWs, Hamas has violated pretty much everything in the 78-page treaty, especially Part II on the proper treatment of prisoners of war.

No: he was abducted because he was an active-duty IDF soldier on a military base.

Parties at war have been taking active-duty soldiers for as long as war exists. They're called "prisoners of war." Except when IDF soldiers are taken; then they're innocent "hostages."

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 13, 2025

This section prohibits, for example, anything that threatens the life or health of the prisoner, physical mutilation, acts of violence or intimidation, including those based on gender, insults, measures of reprisal, or depriving medical attention. The hostages have reportedly experienced all of these.

Putting the universal back into universal justice

The criticism that international law is a crumbling edifice, inconsistently applied and hypocritically manipulated – usually to Israel's benefit, in contrast to the standard Israeli talking point – is real, and I share it.

But the only hope for the success of international law as a guiding star for what's right is to apply it consistently. The whole edifice of universal justice rests on its "universality". Hamas should not get a free pass because Palestinians deserve freedom, or because Israel itself has violated international law.

In fact, anyone who holds Israel responsible for sweeping up Palestinians in the Gaza war and holding many of them indefinitely without charge or endpoint, often under abusive conditions, as bargaining chips for future hostage release (whether or not Israel admits it) – making them hostages too – is depending on international law.

Anyone who expects Israel to comply with that law, to stop its policies of mass civilian killing, destruction of civilian infrastructure and the conditions of life, or cease its inhuman humanitarian siege, has a much stronger case by referencing international law.

But Israelis mostly scoff at such arguments, with the typical response: "Did Hamas follow international law on October 7?" The only legitimate answer is no, yet that cannot excuse Israeli non-compliance – not because the actions are symmetrical or equivalent, but because international law prohibits both, period.

Protecting human rights beyond the law

Legal documentation can feel obtuse, dry and soulless. But the great ambition of universal protection for human rights goes far beyond the law itself. I see the law as a skeletal framework to support a deeper commitment to doing what is right, to all people – the flesh and blood of the project.

I think of the words of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who spoke to the United Nations in 1963 about the "rule of international morality" (which I confess was handed down to me decades ago by Bob Marley in his song "War", but please, read the whole speech – it's a snapshot of faith in the world's most audacious peace project, from a different era).

In any vision of 'international morality', no one would need to be an expert in international law to know that both hostage-taking and mass humanitarian siege and starvation are totally and completely unacceptable.

This week, a group of Israeli activists stood silently outside Israel's Tel Nof air force base holding posters of Gazan children killed in the war. A passerby hurled a retort to the effect that the Israeli baby Kfir Bibas was also slain.

Everyone should know there's only one possible response: both deaths are a scourge and a blight on humanity. And neither will end until there's an end to the war, an end to the occupation, a political final-status agreement based on equality for both nations, and an end to all excuses.