yep, the hostage rescue stuff is purely for domestic consumption and propaganda and has no bearing on the military situation, it's purely civilian
Israel not only does not value their own citizens, they are perfectly content to murder them as readily as they murder Palestinians, as October 7th proved, so they actually have negative value (as in, it would be better for the Israeli state if they killed all the hostages rather than attempt to rescue them from a military standpoint, as rescues are risky, but they have to try anyway to boost citizen morale). if the hostages aren't being held in the tunnel network, there is also no military value in rescuing them (AKA finding and destroying tunnels on the way out).
luckily, Israel will cease to exist in the near-to-medium future, as per the following reasoning: Israel will never accept a deal with Hamas because there is no "reasonable" Zionist position remaining; every single person in the Knesset desires the total annihilation of every single person in the Gaza Strip and will not accept a lesser outcome. therefore, we can conclude that all the ceasefire stuff is for domestic consumption and propaganda too. therefore, as the Resistance is stronger than Israel (as the situation in northern Israel and the Red Sea proves), it is logically inevitable that this is Israel's terminal war and we should prepare for a post-Israel Middle East, and hope that it isn't a massively irradiated future.
really is the worst fucking subcontinent. just considering all the wars and genocides that have resulted from Europe and Europeans, you're looking at hundreds of millions needlessly dead and billions more in misery. thank god they're rapidly sliding into total irrelevancy, hopefully in a century or two people won't give a shit about whatever conflicts the feudal clans of the descendants of the current leadership are getting up to and humanity will have left them behind to go on space habitats or something. I might be on the sinking ship but I'll be laughing the whole way down