Hamas has indicated it is currently unable to identify and track down 40 Israeli hostages needed for the first phase of a ceasefire deal, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the discussions, raising fears that more hostages may be dead than are publicly known.
You’re inferring the start point for the perfect continuous and assigning Oct 7; I’m assigning the start point to be the overall conflict in a broader context. I’m being charitable. I might be wrong, but I can’t read OPs mind so I’m being charitable.
In that case, they would have used the present simple, “Hamas don’t take hostages”, but they didn’t.
I think you simply misunderstood the original statement.
I could be wrong. I’m happy to take the L. Not a hill I want to die on.