I say this, since the Western news media seems to have stopped pretending to care about a pretence of neutrality and bringing up human shields and the "savage Islamic radical hordes" again...
Idc if it's IDF soldiers and political figures they're only capturing, but it seems to also include settler civilians, specifically some women, others elderly, and a few youths (may or may not be teens).
It's an unknown amount, but it seems like a lot more than some dozens
What the hell do they need them for? As a bargaining chip?
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dna-prayers-israelis-desperate-word-missing-kin-hamas-attack-2023-10-08/
Edit 1: What if they left the collaborator settler "civilians" alone, but kept the important political and military figures with them
Edit 2: On second thoughts, the settlers can seem to be indirectly, if not fully committed to this settler-colonial project, considering by the presence of paramilitaries and settling alone...
Not sure if I can immediately spitball if only because then you have to start asking qualitative questions about how removed from active duty service the hostages are, how gung-ho they were about keeping their training up, et cetera. Start getting a wide range of dispositions just from those questions alone, dig?
I'm just asking how much of them do you think have enough military training to be a threat...
Enough of them to be a problem if left unchecked.