The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, asked the help of the CICR to provide “food” and “medical treatment” to Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, prey to a humanitarian disaster, where Hamas demanded in exchange the opening of “humanitarian corridors.”
The publication since Thursday by the Palestinian Islamist movement and its ally of the Islamic Jihad with three videos that show two very weakened Israeli hostages have revived in Israel the debate about the need to reach an agreement as quickly as possible to release these captives, eliminated during the attack without recaliness in Hamas in Israel of October 7, 2023.
In the Palestinian territory, devastated by almost 22 months of war launched by this attack and threatened with “generalized famine” according to the UN, the civil defense informed 26 people killed during the day by Israeli fires or bombings. Nine of them expected help in the South near a center of the GHF, the Humanitarian Foundation of Gaza, supported by Israel and the United States.
Benjamin Netanyahu “spoke with the head of the Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in our region”, and “requested their participation to provide food to our hostages and provide them with an immediate medical treatment,” said his office.
Shortly after, Hamas’ armed branch claimed to be ready to respond “positively” to any ICRC request, but required in advance “the opening of humanitarian corridors (…) for the passage of food and medicines” in the Gaza Strip.
“Without preferential treatment”
“The Qassam brigades do not deliberately deprive food prisoners, but they eat what our combatants and all our people eat,” maintains the movement, which he warned: the hostages “will not receive any preferential treatment while the blockade and the policy of famine will continue.”
In X, the Regional Delegation of ICRC expressed its “dismay” after the recent hostage videos, claiming that this “disastrous situation must stop.” The ICRC rejected any other immediate comments.
The prime minister, under strong pressure in Israel to obtain the return of the hostages, had previously expressed, through his services, his “deep dismay against disseminated recordings”, and secured the continuation of “efforts to bring all our hostages.”
The night before, tens of thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv in support of hostage families. In the images, the two captives, Rom Breslevski and Evyatar David, seemed very weakened and weight loss, in a staging aimed at making the parallel with the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The sequence that shows Evyatar David seemed to dig his own grave, shovel in his hand, in a narrow tunnel where he is detained, particularly shocked. Benjamin Netanyahu, according to his office, had “a long conversation” on Saturday with their families. “The cruelty of Hamas has no limits,” he said, again accusing the Islamist movement “of also deliberately hunger to the inhabitants of the Gaza strip, preventing them from receiving help.”
“Frightful images”
The head of diplomacy of the European Union, Kaja Kallas, denounced “terrible images”, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, punished an “abject cruelty” of Hamas. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also said “horrified”, while calling Israel to continue the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and not to “respond to cynicism.”
Israel, who has been begging the more than two million Palestinians from Gaza since the beginning of the war, raised the total humanitarian block in early May that imposed in early March, but only authorizes the entry of amounts of limited aid, considered insufficient by the UN.
In the south, near the center of the GHF, “the soldiers opened fire against the people. He was there, no one was a threat,” said a witness, Jabo al-Sha’er, 31. The Israeli army said they did not know “victims after shots” in the area.
He also indicated “examine” the accusations of Palestinian red that said that one of his employees had been killed during the night in an Israeli strike aimed at the organization’s seat in Khan Younès (South). The ICRC said it was “dismayed”, demanding “respect” and “protection” of humanitarian staff.
Of the 251 people kidnapped on October 7, 49 remain retained in Gaza, of which 27 declared dead by the Israeli army, after two truces had allowed the release of others. The attack resulted in the death of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count made from official data. Israeli reprisals have killed at least 60,839 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Hamas, considered reliable by the UN.
Source: BFM TV
