He self-evidently didn’t insist that Hamas immediately release all the hostages:
Except that, as he made clear in his interviews, he has not been demanding of Hamas that it “RELEASE ALL HOSTAGES IMMEDIATELY.”

But rather, as he told CNN, he had been trying to “jumpstart some negotiations that were in a very fragile place” and had “wanted to say to Hamas:
1. What is the endgame that you want here? Not the dream endgame,
2. but what do you think is realistic at this point.”

Boehler thinks Hamas will ultimately choose to melt away:
1. displayed a dangerous naivete as regards Hamas’s ultimate intentions,
2. for all the world as though October 7 had not happened,
3. and as though Hamas, in order to try to ensure its survival,
4. was not cynically utilizing every ounce of leverage it has attained
5. by holding (and torturing and sometimes killing) the hostages
6. he is charged with helping to extricate.