Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

This week, Israel was shattered by the news that six hostages, all previously thought alive, were discovered dead in a Gaza tunnel. The six hostages whose bodies were recovered over the weekend — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi — were killed just days before troops found them, according to autopsies and the IDF.

They were all buried this week and hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Sunday demanding a hostage release deal, now.

Rettig Gur and Borschel-Dan have an open, painful conversation about what may be the two sides of Israel’s Sophie’s Choice: between live hostages and, potentially, the military deterrence to prevent more Israelis from being taken.

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod Waves.

IMAGE: A display of 27 coffins of the hostages who were killed while in captivity in Gaza set up at Habima Square in Tel Aviv. (Zohar Ben Yehuda)

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