BBC anchor asks if Israeli forces warned Palestinians ahead of hostage rescue mission: Defeats 'the purpose'

A former IDF spokesperson pushed back against a BBC anchor who asked if Israeli forces would have warned Gazans ahead of a secret raid to liberate a handful of hostages so they could seek safety.

"Would there have been a warning to those civilians [Gazans] for them to get out on time?" BBC anchor Helena Humphrey asked former IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus during a recent interview.

"Of course, we can't anticipate Israel to be warning ahead of a raid to extract or to save hostages because then what the terrorists would do is to kill the hostages, and that would defeat the purpose," he replied.

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People walk near the entrance to BBC Broadcasting House on October 22, 2012, in London, England. BBC anchor Helena Humphrey asked if Israeli forces would have warned Gazan civilians about the operation ahead of time.  (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

The exchange followed Humphrey's note on the massive sums of Gazan civilians who died amid conflict in the region. She asked Conricus if the IDF could have anticipated such a substantial number of casualties that have occurred in the months since the war began in October.

"I think the whole civilian issue here really needs to be analyzed impartially and understood," he said, pointing to his sources and Hamas statements to support his suggestion that Palestinian civilians played a role in the situation.

"… the Israeli hostages were held and jailed by Palestinian civilians in a Palestinian civilian area, and as regrettable as any loss of life is, I think that we would have to investigate really who are the people who jailed these Israeli civilians for eight months? Why did they do it? What was the role of the surrounding community and the hundreds if not thousands of Palestinians who for sure were aware of the fact that these Israeli hostages were being held in their midst, and why were they complicit with Hamas?" he asked.

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The exchange caught attention from some on X, formerly Twitter, when one user shared video from the channel.

Journalist David Collier, sounding off in the comments, asked if Allied forces should have called Adolf Hitler to warn him ahead of the D-Day invasion during World War II.

Israeli hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, who were captured at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, were liberated in two separate locations in the heart of Nuseirat in central Gaza on Saturday.

Chief Inspector Arnon Zmora, an officer in Israel's special anti-terror unit of Yamam, died after being critically injured during the operation. 

Despite their rescue, 120 Israeli hostages are still in Hamas captivity. Forty-three of them have been declared dead, and their bodies are still held by the terrorist group.

Conricus called Saturday's rescues a "glimmer of light in a sea of darkness and despair" while insisting there is still much more work to be done.

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"For the first time in months, Israelis have a moment to rejoice and [there are] happy scenes of families being reunified. I'm very happy to see it," he added.

Conricus also joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" on Sunday where he further discussed the covert methods Israeli forces used to bring the hostages home and the role Palestinian civilians played in keeping the hostages in captivity.

"This isn't the first time Hamas has jailed hostages in a Palestinian civilian environment… by the way, the people who were guarding and forcing the Israeli civilians to stay there were Palestinian civilians. It's all a civilian situation here," he said.

Taylor Penley is an associate editor with Fox News.