The deal Israel has just struck for at least 50 of the 236 hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza is a mark of the veneration for life that obtains in the Jewish state. It’s a moment not to second guess the Israeli leadership but to appreciate the lives of its citizens who are about to be spared and pray for those still held and could be released in the coming weeks. It is a first sign of hope in a season of bitterness. 

Yet the deal is also an enormous risk, one illuminated by recent history. We’re thinking of 2011, when Israel in exchange for one soldier — Sergeant Gilad Shalit, who’d been held by Hamas for more than five years — gave up 1,027 prisoners. Among them was a convicted kidnapper, Yahya Sinwar, serving four life sentences. He is now the leader of Hamas in Gaza and the culprit who ordered the attack on October 7.

Sinwar, moreover, is just one of the killers released in 2011. Press reports at the time, including from the Guardian, reckoned that among those released in return for Sergeant Shalit were some 280 prisoners serving life sentences for participating in planning or perpetrating terror attacks. We don’t yet know who are the 150 Palestinian Arabs Israel anticipates releasing in the current prisoner exchange.

This is by no means the first time that Israel has made an uneven trade. This “long history of lopsided prisoner exchanges” has  been noted by, among others, Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker. In 1985, Mr. Wright marked, Israel swapped, for three of its soldiers seized in Lebanon, more than a thousand individuals held in Israeli prisons. Some who were freed, he said, “went on to become terrorist leaders, including the founders of Hamas.”

The staging — and other terms — of the latest hostage release presents an opportunity for mischief on the part of Hamas. This is well-marked by the Wall Street Journal, in an editorial issued last night. “Expect Hamas,” it said, “to drag out the cease-fire in hopes of making it permanent. Dribbling out 10 hostages a day, Hamas could stall for a few weeks. Or what if it claims after day two that Israel has broken the deal. . . ?”

The Journal also makes a point about the lack of equivalence between Israel and Hamas: “The deal again shows the moral gulf between the two sides. Hamas kidnapped Israeli children as young as nine months to use as hostages and spring its jihadists who have been arrested or convicted in a fair trial for their crimes. Israel takes military risks to save its citizens. Hamas risks Palestinian civilians to save itself.”

That will be something to bear in mind as this drama unfolds. In America’s own hostage crisis — involving Yanks held by Iran for the last 444 days of President Carter’s term — the Journal issued a famous editorial. It did so as soon as the hostages were released, Carter’s term ended, and Reagan was president. It called on the Gipper to renounce the deal made when America had a gun to its head.

What an uproar ensued.We’re neither predicting nor advocating that Israel will do anything like that. Its situation is different, after all, starting with the fact that a state of war is in effect. The hostage deal is a swap that both sides appear to have concluded is right. It is not, though, an end to the conflict. This was made clear by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who said, “We are at war, and we will continue the war. We will continue until we achieve all our goals.”