Israel’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Sharren Haskel, has compared the trauma of the country’s ongoing hostage crisis with Nigeria’s experience at the hands of the terrorist group Boko Haram.
In a telephone interview from Jerusalem on Monday, Haskel confirmed the release of three Israeli hostages by Hamas on Saturday in exchange for 95 Palestinian prisoners but said the exchange was “a dangerous price.”
“These people have been radicalised, and there’s nothing you can do to de-radicalise them,” she said.
“These people committed monstrous crimes; they murdered innocent children and women, and yet they are going to be released without restrictions. Research and the evidence of history have shown that they will return to what they were doing, if not worse.”
Haskel said she believed Nigerians could relate to what Israel was going through, given the country’s experience with Boko Haram and other terror groups.
Although, unlike Hamas, Boko Haram does not operate from a self-governing territory, the terror group, which has operated in many parts of Northern Nigeria for nearly two decades, is notorious for its mayhem, including taking over 200 school children as hostages in Chibok in 2014.
Haskel said Israel’s military was also observing a gradual pullout from Gaza. She said if all goes well, another four hostages might be released by Saturday in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners under the first phase of the peace deal that came into effect on Sunday.
Asked why she described the prisoners’ release as a “dangerous price,” Haskel said it was because she wanted the world to know the “high price” that Israel was paying for peace.
“It’s a very, very high price we’re paying to get the hostages home to reunite with their families,” she said.
