Who’s a hostage? Examining the use of language as a type of warfare
Language matters. The words we choose shape perceptions, influence policy, and ultimately affect lives. Since October 7, 2023, media outlets and political leaders have consistently referred to Israelis captured by Hamas as “hostages,” while thousands of Palestinians held by Israel without charge or trial are merely “detainees” or “prisoners.”
This linguistic asymmetry isn’t accidental; it’s a form of narrative warfare that sanitizes one side’s actions while demonizing the other’s. The uneven application of terminology deserves scrutiny, especially when empirical evidence suggests that both sides are engaging in practices that meet similar criteria, but in the case of Israel taking Palestinian hostages the activity is a hundred-fold more pervasive.
What Makes Someone a Hostage?
The term “hostage” generally implies someone held against their will as leverage for political, military, or economic demands. The emotional weight of the word evokes innocence and victimhood. In contrast, terms like “detainee” or “prisoner” imply some form of legal process or justification, however tenuous.
As of April 2025, Israel holds approximately 9,900 Palestinian detainees and prisoners. Among these are 3,500–3,660 Palestinians held under administrative detention — incarcerated without trial or charge, with no time limit, based on “secret evidence” neither they nor their lawyers can access. Additionally, 1,747 people from Gaza are classified as “unlawful combatants,” another category allowing indefinite detention without due process.
Israel’s Administrative Detention: Hostage-Taking by Another Name?
Israel’s administrative detention system permits the military to hold Palestinians indefinitely without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, defines administrative detention as “incarceration without trial or charge, alleging that a person plans to commit a future offense.” The evidence used to justify this detention is never disclosed to the detainee or their lawyer, making it impossible to mount a meaningful defense.
This system bears striking similarities to what we conventionally call hostage-taking. The detained individual is:
- Held without access to due process
- Deprived of liberty based on undisclosed evidence
- Detained for indefinite periods
- Often used as bargaining chips in prisoner exchanges
Tellingly, Israel has officially recognized this parallel in the past. Between 1999 and 2004, Israel openly acknowledged holding Lebanese prisoners in administrative detention as “hostages” for potential exchanges with Lebanese groups holding Israeli soldiers.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has expanded its use of the “Unlawful Combatants Law” to detain Palestinians from Gaza en masse. According to Amnesty International, detainees under this law have been held “for periods of up to four and a half months without access to their lawyers or any contact with their families.” The organization documented cases of 27 Palestinian former detainees, including women and a 14-year-old boy, whose detention “in some cases amounted to enforced disappearance.”
The Israeli Prison Service confirmed that as of July 2024, 1,402 Palestinians were detained under this law, which allows detention for 45 days without even issuing a formal order. Detainees can be denied access to a lawyer for up to 90 days, codifying what Amnesty calls “incommunicado detention.”
United Nations Assessment
A 2024 UN Human Rights Office report on arbitrary detention by Israeli authorities found that thousands of Palestinians “have generally been held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention, access to a lawyer or effective judicial review.” The report documented allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk expressed concern about “the staggering number of men, women, children, doctors, journalists and human rights defenders detained since 7 October, most of them without charge or trial and held in deplorable conditions,” noting that this raises “serious concerns regarding the arbitrariness and the fundamentally punitive nature of such arrests and detention.”
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has detained approximately 30,000 Palestinians, with the number of Palestinian political prisoners doubling from about 5,250 to nearly 10,000. During prisoner exchanges with Hamas, Israel has released just over 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, meaning that for every person released, approximately 15 others were apprehended.
The scale and systematic nature of these detentions cannot be overstated. According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, since 1967, Israeli forces have detained an estimated one million Palestinians, or approximately 20 percent of the Palestinian population. Statistically, this means one out of every five Palestinians has been imprisoned at some point in their life.
Media Complicity in Linguistic Warfare
When mainstream media outlets exclusively reserve the term “hostage” for Israelis held by Hamas while using “detainee” or “prisoner” for Palestinians held without charge by Israel, they participate in a form of linguistic warfare that dehumanizes Palestinians and legitimizes their indefinite detention without due process.
This selective use of terminology shapes public perception and policy. It makes the suffering of Israelis held by Hamas immediate and visceral while rendering the plight of thousands of Palestinians held without charge abstract and bureaucratic. It implies that Israeli lives are held hostage while Palestinian lives are simply being “processed” through a legitimate, if perhaps flawed, system.
If we’re serious about pursuing peace and justice, we must begin by applying our terminology consistently and fairly. If Israelis captured by Hamas are “hostages,” then Palestinians held indefinitely without charge by Israel, used as bargaining chips in prisoner exchanges, and denied basic due process rights should be described in the same terms.
Acknowledging this reality doesn’t diminish the suffering of Israeli hostages or justify their capture. Rather, it recognizes that the violation of human rights and dignity is equally wrong regardless of who perpetrates it or against whom.
The first step toward genuine peace requires honest language. As long as we apply different standards and terminology to similar actions based solely on who performs them, we perpetuate a narrative that tacitly accepts the dehumanization of one side. True justice demands consistency — in our language, in our moral judgments, and in our policy prescriptions.
In a conflict where both sides have legitimate grievances and have committed serious violations, accurate and equitable language isn’t just about semantics — it’s an essential foundation for any meaningful path toward resolution and reconciliation.
[Claude 3.7 assisted in writing this piece]
