Netanyahu asks Red Cross for hostage aid – Hamas provides conditions

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the International Committee from the Red Cross (IKRK) for help in supplying the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip. The head of government spoke to the head of the ICRK delegation in the region, Julien Lerisson, said Netanyahu’s office on Sunday. He asked him to support the care of the hostages with food and immediate medical help.

This was preceded by the Hamas published videos, which had met with severe criticism in many countries: One of the videos shows the emaciated Evyatar David how he seems to shovel his own grave in a tight tunnel. Another video shows how the German-Israeli Rome Braslavski has to look at news videos about the famine of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The videos caused great horror in Israel and internation.

Hamas keeps the last estimated 20 living hostages caught in its tunnels in the Gaza Strip under inhumane conditions. Hamas has previously denied humanitarian organizations of any access to the hostages. Hamas had also used hostage videos as a means of psychological warfare in the past. In Israel there is suspicion that in this case the Islamists brought their kidnapping victims specifically to the edge of starvation in order to put pressure on the Netanyahu government with the territory.

According to its own information, the radical-Islamic Hamas is ready for cooperation with the Red Cross in order to provide help from her in the Gaza Strip. Before that, however, Israel had to meet certain conditions, Hamas said on Sunday.

The Al-Kassam brigades, the armed arm of the Hamas, said that he was ready to answer the “enemy prisoners” to the delivery of food and medication positively. However, it was said in the explanation that permanent humanitarian corridors had to be set up to the approval of such inquiries so that food and medication could be delivered “to our whole people in all areas of the Gaza Strip”.

The Al-Kassam brigades also announced that Hamas hungry the hostages in the Gaza Strip “not on purpose”, “but they eat the same food as our fighters and the population”. In view of the hunger and Israeli siege, “no special rights would be granted”.

The ICRK delegation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian areas meanwhile showed “horrified” about the “shocking” hostage videos that were recently published by Hamas and the Palestinian group of Islamic jihad. The delegation reaffirmed its demand for access to the hostages, but otherwise did not comment on the question of the possible care of the hostages by the ICRC.

Among others, France, Great Britain, the USA and Germany criticized Hamas sharply. Israel announced that the UN Security Council will meet on Tuesday morning in a special meeting on the situation of hostage in Gaza.

In a statement by the hostage family forum, which represents the relatives of the hosted hostages, it was said that Hamas has held innocent people under impossible conditions for over 660 days. Until their release, Hamas has the obligation to supply it with everything necessary.

After almost 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is devastating. More than a hundred aid organizations recently warned of a “mass starvation” in the Palestinian area. Internationally, the pressure on Israel had recently grown to leave more relief supplies in the Gaza Strip and to agree to a new ceasefire.

The health authorities under the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, announced that six other people had died of hunger or malnutrition in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours. This increases the number of those who have died of the consequences of a emerging famine since the beginning of the war, including 93 children. UN organizations have asked Israel to give much more help to the area to prevent famine among the 2.2 million people. From the Israeli side it had repeatedly said that the help had to be prevented from getting into the hands of Hamas.

According to the Palestinian authorities, at least 80 people were also killed by Israeli shelling and air strikes in the coastal slave on Sunday in the coastal slave. Among them are people who have tried to get aid deliveries in the southern and central areas of the Gaza Strip.

The war had been triggered by the unprecedented major attack by Hamas and with it allied fighter on Israel on October 7, 2023. According to Israeli information, 1219 people were killed and 251 people were dragged into the Gaza strip as hostages.

Since then, Israel has massively military in the Gaza Strip in response to the Hamas attack. According to the Hamas authorities, which cannot be confirmed independently, more than 60,400 people have been killed so far.

Hamas is aiming for a termination of the Gaza War on its conditions. It would freeze the hostages if Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip and hires all fighting against Hamas. Israel in turn demands exiling the Islamists and the course of their squad. Hamas decides that.

In addition to the 20 living hostages, the terrorist organization has the remains of a further 28 to 30 deported in their violence. So far, months of efforts to bring about an ceasefire through indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas and to bring about the release of the hostages have so far been unsuccessful.

According to Netanyahus, Hamas has no interest in an agreement on an ceasefire in the Gaza war and the release of hostages. “I understand exactly what Hamas wants. She doesn’t want a deal,” he said in a video message according to an English translation of the “Times of Israel”. He was now even more determined to free the hostages and smash Hamas.

The forum of the hostage families criticized its statements. “The public has been selling the public for 22 months that military pressure and intensive fights will bring the hostages back,” the newspaper quoted an explanation of the group, which the majority of the 50 still held in Gaza. “The truth must be said: The expansion of the war endangers the life of hostages that float in the immediate danger of death. We have seen the terrifying images of the hostages in the tunnels, they will not survive further long days of horror,” the forum explains.

Netanyahu had previously explained: “You (Hamas) want to break us-with these horrible videos, with the wrong horror propaganda that spreads it all over the world.” But you won’t be breaked. The head of government referred to two hostage videos that the Palestinian terrorist organization had published in the past few days.

According to media reports, the Israeli leadership actually consider a military approach to free the last hostages. Netanyahu then strives to achieve the release of the hostages “on the way of a military victory”, it says in a statement that a government official of several Israeli newspapers not mentioned by name.

In this regard, the American leadership is in dialogue, and the insight is evident that Hamas is not interested in an agreement in the course of indirect negotiations. Humanitarian aid for the Palestinian civilian population should continue to be guaranteed, apart from fighting areas and areas under the control of Hamas.