Strange that these articles don’t mention that almost no hostages are released “as-is” - for each Israeli hostage, 3 convicted prisoners (women and under 19y.o. “children”) had to be released by Israel.
Their crimes include shooting and stabbing attacks, car rammings, and at least one case of explosive-car-rigging…
The only exception are 12-16 Thai and Philippinian foreign nationals, which were actually released after being held hostage illegally for almost 50 days.