Hamas has mentioned it’s open to the Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross (ICRC) delivering help to Israeli captives in Gaza after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned he requested the Geneva-based worldwide organisation to step in.
The statements from Hamas and Netanyahu got here after Palestinian teams final week launched movies displaying two emaciated Israeli captives held in Gaza, the place some 2 million Palestinians are struggling to outlive the Israeli-induced hunger disaster.
Netanyahu mentioned on Sunday he had spoken to Julian Larson, the pinnacle of the ICRC delegation to Israel, requesting the group’s “speedy involvement” in offering meals and medical remedy to captives nonetheless held in Gaza.
In a publish on X, Netanyahu wrote in Hebrew that he advised Larson that Hamas was propagating a “lie of hunger” within the enclave, however the actuality was that “systematic hunger is being carried out towards our hostages”.
Afterward Sunday, the spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, mentioned in a press release that Israeli captives held in Gaza “eat what our fighters and all our individuals eat”.
“They won’t obtain any particular privilege amid the crime of hunger and siege,” the spokesman, generally known as Abu Obeida, mentioned.
However, he added, the group is “able to act positively and reply to any request from the Crimson Cross to ship meals and drugs to enemy prisoners”.
To ensure that requests to help captives to be accepted, “humanitarian corridors have to be opened in a traditional and everlasting method for the passage of meals and drugs to all our individuals in all areas of the Gaza Strip”, Abu Obeida mentioned.
Israeli assaults “of all types should stop in the course of the receipt of packages for the prisoners”, he added.
The ICRC mentioned in a press release on Sunday that it was “appalled by the harrowing movies” of the captives held in Gaza and reiterated its name to be “granted entry to the hostages.”
“These movies are stark proof of the life-threatening circumstances during which the hostages are being held,” the ICRC mentioned within the assertion shared on X.
“We all know households watching these movies are horrified and heartbroken by the circumstances they see their family members held in,” the ICRC added.
On its web site, the ICRC says that “securing entry requires the cooperation of all events concerned”. The ICRC additionally says on its web site that it “has not been capable of go to any Palestinian detainees held in Israeli locations of detention since 7 October 2023.”
In a separate assertion on Sunday, the ICRC mentioned it was additionally “appalled” {that a} Palestine Crimson Crescent Society employees member had been killed in a “clearly marked Palestine Crimson Crescent Society (PRCS) constructing” in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
The PRCS had earlier mentioned the assault was perpetrated by Israeli forces, however the ICRC assertion didn’t consult with who was accountable.
A million girls and ladies ravenous
In the meantime, the households of Israeli captives held in Gaza mentioned on Sunday that Netanyahu’s continued insistence {that a} “navy decision” was the one resolution was “a direct hazard to the lives of our sons, who stay within the hell of tunnels and are threatened by hunger and speedy loss of life”.
“For 22 months, the general public has been offered the phantasm that navy strain will deliver again the hostages, and at present, even earlier than reaching a complete draft settlement, it’s mentioned that an settlement is futile,” the households mentioned in a press release.
There are about 50 captives nonetheless in Gaza. Fewer than half are believed to be nonetheless alive.
The most recent developments come because the Authorities Media Workplace in Gaza mentioned that Israeli authorities allowed simply 36 help vehicles to enter the Gaza Strip on Saturday, whereas 22,000 help vehicles proceed to sit down exterior the Strip ready to deliver much-needed meals to Palestinians there.
The United Nations workplace in Geneva on Sunday additionally warned that 1 million girls and ladies in Gaza are actually ravenous.
In a publish on X, the UN mentioned: “A million. That’s what number of girls and ladies are ravenous in Gaza. This horrific scenario is unacceptable and should finish.
We proceed to demand the supply of lifesaving help for all girls and ladies, an instantaneous ceasefire, and the discharge of all hostages.”
At the least 175 individuals, together with 93 kids, have now been confirmed lifeless from pressured hunger, in response to the territory’s Ministry of Well being, together with 17-year-old Atef Abu Khater, whose weight had dropped to only 25kg (55lbs) earlier than he died on Saturday.