The Hostages Are Free: Now Let Justice Begin

The Cost of Two Years of War Must be Justice

After two years of hell, twenty Israeli hostages walked free from Gaza today. Parents reunited with sons. Children embraced fathers. Families torn apart by Hamas’s attack on October 7th, 2023, finally whole again. In Tel Aviv’s “hostages square,” 65,000 people roared as the news came through. Across Israel, millions wept with relief.

This is cause for celebration. Every innocent life matters. Every family deserves to be reunited. Every hostage freed is a victory for our shared humanity over the barbarism of war. But we must be honest about what has taken place. This was not simply a release; it was an exchange born of blood and desperation. Twenty Israelis came home, while 2,000 Palestinians stepped out of Israeli prisons, among them 250 from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, many serving life sentences for acts of resistance. Over 1,700 were seized from Gaza during the war, people the United Nations classifies as “forcibly disappeared.” Another 154 have been banished into permanent exile, forbidden ever to see their homes or families again.

Every one of them, Israeli or Palestinian, has lived through the same machinery of cruelty that strips people of their names and turns them into numbers. Each deserves the same thing: freedom, safety, and the right to live without fear.

But let us not pretend this moment of joy erases two years of slaughter. Let us not forget what Benjamin Netanyahu unleashed in response to Hamas’s atrocity. Let us remember the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 20,000 children, killed in what the world’s leading genocide scholars have determined meets the legal definition of genocide. The soil of Gaza is now soaked with grief, its hospitals bombed, its schools in ruins, its children buried beneath the rubble of a government’s revenge.

The hostages are home. But Gaza is rubble. Entire neighbourhoods obliterated. Hospitals bombed. Schools destroyed. Families wiped from the civil registry. A population starved, displaced, and traumatised beyond measure. Whatever righteous anger Israel felt after October 7th, whatever legitimate need for security it claimed, the response crossed every red line that separates warfare from war crimes.

And now, in a scene that would be comedic if it weren’t so obscene, Donald Trump stands beside Netanyahu in Jerusalem, basking in the glory of a ceasefire he claims only he could broker. “As far as I’m concerned, the war is over,” Trump announces, as if the devastation of Gaza can be switched off like a television programme he’s grown bored with.

Then comes the moment that reveals everything about how power operates in our world. Trump, standing next to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, suggests Netanyahu deserves a pardon for his leadership during the war. A pardon. For a man currently on trial for corruption, accused of accepting expensive gifts (cigars and pink champagne, naturally) in exchange for regulatory favours. A man who prolonged this war for his own political survival, who rejected ceasefire after ceasefire whilst Palestinians died by the thousand.

Trump wants Herzog to pardon Netanyahu for corruption. But the corruption charge is the least of it. The real question is whether Netanyahu will ever stand in the dock at The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Because that is where he belongs. Not receiving pardons and photo opportunities, but answering for the systematic destruction of Gaza, the starvation of civilians, the targeting of hospitals and refugee camps, the obliteration of entire family lines.

Crimes against humanity are defined as large-scale attacks against civilians. Unlike war crimes, they can be committed during both peace and war, against a state’s own nationals as well as foreign nationals. They have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution. Netanyahu’s campaign in Gaza fits this definition with chilling precision. The collective punishment. The deliberate starvation. The indiscriminate bombing. These are not the unfortunate side effects of legitimate military action. They are the policy.

And let us be clear about who else deserves a place in that dock. Our own Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, who at every stage of this nightmare insisted Israel had “the right to defend itself.” The right to cut off water and electricity to two million civilians. The right to bomb hospitals and schools. The right to commit what amounts to collective punishment prohibited under international law. Starmer, the former human rights barrister who once prosecuted war crimes, spent two years providing diplomatic cover for them.

Every time Starmer repeated that phrase, “Israel has the right to defend itself,” he gave permission for another bombing campaign, another destroyed neighbourhood, another mass grave uncovered beneath the rubble. He chose the side of power over the side of humanity. He chose political calculation over moral clarity. And when the historians write about this period, when the legal proceedings finally begin, his complicity will be recorded alongside Netanyahu’s crimes.

@Keir_Starmer and his @UKLabour government pretending to be mad at Israel now that 14,000 babies are starving to death… He encouraged it, he's complacent in it. #Gaza pic.twitter.com/onfHqDkrUO

— Labour Heartlands (@Labourheartland) May 21, 2025

The ceasefire is welcome. The hostage release is cause for joy. But let us not be fooled into thinking this represents justice or peace. This is merely an exhausted pause in a conflict that will resume unless the fundamental injustices are addressed. The occupation. The blockade. The denial of Palestinian self-determination. The daily humiliations that have festered for decades, creating the conditions that allowed Hamas to recruit, to build support, to commit the atrocity of October 7th.

Here is where things become strange. You find yourself agreeing with Donald Trump, of all people. When he says nations should spend their wealth on schools and hospitals instead of weapons, he is absolutely right. When he talks about Middle Eastern nations working together for opportunity and prosperity, investing in medicine, education, and technology instead of missiles, you want to believe him.

But let us not be naïve. The Western military-industrial complex has no interest in peace. It thrives on conflict, lobbying politicians, greasing palms, ensuring the arms trade never runs dry. War is good for business, and business is booming. British arms manufacturers made fortunes from this war. American defence contractors saw their stock prices soar. The politicians who authorised the weapons sales will retire to lucrative consultancy positions with those same companies.

Trump’s vision of Middle Eastern prosperity sounds almost utopian. But as long as profit depends on perpetual war, peace will always be the enemy of the men who make the bombs. As long as Western governments prioritise arms sales over human rights, slaughter will continue. As long as politicians like Starmer choose geopolitical alignment over moral principle, the cycle repeats.

The war is over, Trump says. But is it? That question hangs like the sword of Damocles. The ceasefire is just the first phase of a 20-point peace plan. The future of Hamas and Gaza remains undecided. The question of disarmament is unresolved. The fundamental grievances that fuel this conflict have not been addressed. Netanyahu remains in power, his corruption trial continuing, his political future dependent on maintaining the image of the strong security leader. The Israeli far-right, emboldened by two years of unchecked violence, will resist any genuine peace that requires dismantling settlements or ending the occupation.

And what of Gaza? What of the survivors who have lost everything? What justice awaits them? What compensation for homes destroyed, families killed, futures stolen? Who will rebuild the hospitals and schools? Who will heal the children who have known nothing but war? Who will answer for the starvation, the displacement, the systematic destruction of a society?

The hostages are home, and we celebrate their freedom. But thousands of Palestinian prisoners remain in Israeli jails, many held without charge under administrative detention, subjected to abuse and torture documented by human rights organisations. The prisoner exchange of 1,718 men, women and children, but thousands more will remain. Their families deserve reunion too. Their freedom matters too.

We should pray today, as Trump suggests. Pray for the dead on both sides. Pray for the innocents who perished not just since October 7th, but in the decades before that created the conditions for all the atrocities that followed. Pray for the children who will grow up traumatised, their futures stolen by adults who chose violence over dialogue, revenge over reconciliation.

But prayer is not enough. We need accountability. We need justice. We need Netanyahu and every other architect of this catastrophe to face trial for their crimes. We need Starmer and every Western leader who provided cover for genocide to answer for their complicity. We need the arms manufacturers who profited from Palestinian deaths to be held accountable. We need a fundamental reckoning with the military-industrial complex that ensures perpetual war.

The war is over, Trump says. But the occupation continues. The blockade continues. The denial of Palestinian rights continues. The settlements continue to expand. The dehumanisation continues. Until these fundamental injustices are addressed, this is not peace. It is merely an intermission before the next act of horror.

Real peace requires justice. It requires accountability for war crimes. It requires ending the occupation and recognising Palestinian self-determination. It requires dismantling the systems that profit from conflict. It requires politicians who prioritise human rights over geopolitical calculation. It requires citizens who refuse to accept that some lives matter more than others, that some deaths are regrettable whilst others are justified.

The hostages are free. Now the real work begins. Not just rebuilding Gaza, though that is essential. Not just negotiating borders and security arrangements, though that is necessary. But building a genuine peace based on equality, dignity, and justice for all. A peace that recognises the humanity of Israelis and Palestinians alike. A peace that refuses to accept that security for one requires the subjugation of the other.

Today we celebrate the hostages’ freedom. Tomorrow we fight for justice. Because without accountability for the crimes committed, without recognition of the humanity of all victims, without fundamental change to the systems that created this nightmare, we are simply waiting for the next atrocity, the next war, the next generation of children who will inherit hatred instead of hope.

The hostages are home. Now bring the war criminals to justice.