Money is nothing. It’s just a symbolic representation of an exchange.

My one-euro coin does only one thing: provide a universal number for every exchange. It works on one condition only: that everyone involved in the exchange gives it the same value, and therefore the same trust.

That is exactly what hostages are: a human currency. The difficulty is the value each side gives to the humans it holds, and to those it has lost.

A striking example is the exchanges of Palestinian and Israeli prisoners.

For several years, Israel’s leaders refused any negotiation when hostages were taken by the DFLP³. Until the Ma’alot massacre, which left 32 dead, including 22 children, and deeply traumatised the country in 1974.

Since then, Israel has made itself the guarantor of its hostages’ safety, which is in fact one of the reasons it was created.

In 2006, a young 20-year-old soldier, Gilad Shalit, was captured by Hamas. At the time I was working as a photographer following the two French committees supporting Ingrid Betancourt, and Gilad Shalit’s name (and his photo, which I still remember) came up several times. His story moved me because he was barely a year younger than me.

In 2011, after 5 years in captivity, he was freed in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian hostages. Many of them took up arms again. 1 for 1,000.

In 2019, The Times of Israel counted 10 deaths in attacks carried out by those released⁴.

On 14 October 2023, an Israeli army spokesman announced the death of Ali Kachi, a Hamas commander in the Nukhba unit. Actively involved in the terrorist attack on Israel of 7 October 2023, he had been freed in the Gilad Shalit exchange⁵.