All hell did not break loose for Hamas on Saturday, but the word “shaky” doesn’t begin to describe their ceasefire deal with Israel. Thinking better of provoking an already irritated Donald Trump, the terrorists released three hostages this weekend as planned — and unlike this month’s earlier swap, these men looked almost human.

That’s not to say they had an easier time in the suffocating tunnels and hospitals in Gaza. After a primitive surgery, Sagui Dekel-Chen still has open wounds from a shoulder injury. And those are just some of the scars he bears. His body is a story of brutal interrogations and torture over his 498-day nightmare. Like Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov and Iair Horn, he was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023 and held in Khan Younis — less than seven miles away from their homes. And while all three were “pale and limping” on the day of their release, they seemed to be in better condition than the starving men set free last week. 

Dekel-Chen’s emotional reunion with his wife Avital tugged at the world’s heartstrings, especially when the young dad came to grips with the fact that he’d survived long enough to meet his third daughter — born two months after he was captured. After a long and tearful hug, Avital asks Sagui if he remembers what they nicknamed her baby bump. “Mazal,” he said with surprise. “So that’s what she’s called, Shachar Mazal,” Avital responded, “dawn” “luck” in Hebrew. “It’s perfect,” he replied quietly. 

His family, like so many others anxiously waiting for hostages to come home, feel overwhelmed by the bittersweet rush of his return. “Our hearts ache for everything he missed, but now he’s here, unlike many others,” they recognized. 

Iair Horn’s brother has not been so lucky. Early on, they were held together, but Eitan was moved and right now, there are no plans for his release. “I want to know who I need to talk to and what needs to be done to get Eitan and the other hostages out of there,” he said before he’d even finished his medical exam or had something decent to eat. “I was there, I know the suffering, I need to get them out.” Like others who’ve been freed, “he doesn’t know basic things.” Until two days before his release, “he was completely cut off.” “Only now,” Iair’s sister-in-law says, “is he learning who was murdered and who survived.”

For the lucky ones who are home and desperately trying to recover, the horrors of that day — October 7 — are what torments them most. Naama Levy, who was an Israeli surveillance soldier, suffers more from the attack on her army base, her father says, than the year and a half that followed. It was “much more traumatic than the captivity itself,” Yoni explains. “It may change,” he admitted, “but at this stage, we think that this is the most tragic day that she’s talked about.” 

“She just doesn’t talk about it,” he continued. “What happened in that shelter was horrific. It makes her rehabilitation even harder — I can see it. Something terrible happened to my daughter on October 7.” And yes, Yoni admits, “The captivity wasn’t easy, but the nightmare is split into two parts.” 

Liri Albag’s mom can’t even put into words the terrifying images etched on her daughter’s mind. “They saw their friends murdered and then sat there for four hours. … She hasn’t spoken about what happened there.”

“At the time, they thought it had only happened at their base — they had no idea of the scale. Only after four days, when they met other hostages, did they start to grasp the full picture,” she said, shaking her head. For the next several months, their treatment was erratic. “Sometimes they got two meals a day; sometimes they had nothing for days. At times, they ate food meant for donkeys. They made pita bread from it because there was no flour. Hygiene was minimal. Liri wore the same underwear from October 7. As women, we understand what that means — it’s not easy. They got sick a lot.”

One of the worst forms of psychological torture, Daniella Gilboa hates to remember, was being told that the terrorists were going to film her dead. “She pleaded for her life and asked [them not to] do it.” But they covered her in plaster and debris anyway to make it look like an airstrike had killed her. It was unimaginably cruel, her mother remembers, seeing the lifeless image of her daughter, who she knew immediately from her tattoo. “I think everyone who saw it believed it, but I just kept telling myself that it can’t be,” she told the BBC. She was relieved to be right.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., President Trump seems content to let the Jewish state call the shots on whether Hamas should be punished for failing to release all of the hostages, as he demanded last week. “Israel will now have to decide” how to handle the deadline, Trump posted. “The United States will back the decision they make!”

That’s encouraging, former U.S Ambassador to Israel David Friedman noted on Saturday’s “This Week on Capitol Hill.” After four years of the Biden administration’s mixed signals, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally has the benefit of solid American support — even if it means chucking the ceasefire deal moving forward. 

“Nobody was happy with the deal,” Friedman pointed out. And the shocking condition of some of the hostages “galvanized not just the Israelis,” he said, “but the Americans [and] the world as well. … You could see how deeply offended and moved [President Trump] was by seeing their pictures. And I think it had a real impact on his decision to say to … Hamas, ‘Release them all or all hell will break loose.’” As far as Friedman is concerned, “There is definitely a green light for Israel to go back to war and to devastate Hamas.” 

Obviously, everyone wants to save as many captives as possible, the ambassador reiterated. “But I think no matter how you analyze this, the deal crashes on the rocks very soon, no matter what, because the next phase of the deal requires essentially Israel and Hamas to agree to the endgame — and they have such different views of the endgame. And fortunately, Israel and America now are side by side with the view that Hamas has to leave the Gaza Strip. … That’s the only way to really eradicate Hamas. It’s the only way to really deprive Hamas of a platform to re-energize, re-energize, and return to the Gaza Strip.”

So, yes, Friedman agreed, “We have clarity, but I think there’s no question we’re heading back to war. Hopefully, it will be quick and decisive, and it will end with the eradication of Hamas and the beginning of a process to rebuild Gaza.”

If that’s the case, they won’t be working “with one hand tied behind their back” like they were forced to do under Joe Biden’s weak leadership, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins pointed out. Absolutely, Friedman said, “And that’s a game-changing dynamic. And I think Hamas recognizes that as well. And the only question really is will they blink? [And] I have my doubts. I mean they should. Acting as a rational actor, they should blink. Their days are numbered,” he warned. 

At the end of the day, Friedman underscored, “They’re going to be eradicated. They should release all the hostages and use that as a means to find an exit, get to another country, and leave Gaza. But that would mean a defeat. And I don’t think that they have constitutionally the ability to accept that unless it’s forced upon them. So we will see. But I completely agree with you that the support of the United States right now is without handcuffs, without limitations, without instructions to go here or there, without holding back essential weapons that Israel needs.” Taken together, those factors “give Israel a massive advantage to win this war decisively, which we all need.” Ultimately, “The whole world needs to see Hamas eradicated.”