I do wonder whether history backs up this statement. When I hear about hostages taken by terrorists in the news, most of the time, if they are released, and if I remember accurately, they are released via negotiations. I think I hear politicians talk about not negotiating with terrorists, but in reality I think hardly any nation has that as an actual policy, and do in fact negotiate the release of hostages. Even Israel falls into this camp.
I don’t think we have any examples in recent history of a country going on a genocidal rampage to free hostages. So I do in fact think that most—if not all—other countries would have indeed reacted in different ways here, and negotiated to free at least all the civilian hostages within a few months, and the military hostages over the next year, and I do think most—if not all—countries would have done so with exactly 0 civilian casualties.