“Some critics, like Mr. Smotrich, for example, have claimed that the hostage deals are a surrender to Hamas or that hostages should not be exchanged for prisoners. Mr. Smotrich essentially suggests that the war ought to go on indefinitely without pause and with the lives of the hostages of no real concern at all.”
Because the plan all along was to allow october 7th to happen to give then a cassus belli to erradicate the gaza strip. Its not erradicated enough yet to alow them to make bank rebuilding it for israelis. The hostages are pawns for them, and if they get them back they lose their pretext for the take over and destruction.