Netanyahu asks Red Cross to help hostages in Gaza, as families warn against an ‘expanding war'
Israel-Hamas warFacebookTweetLink
Follow
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of not wanting a ceasefire deal and requested that the International Red Cross bring food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza, after public fury ignited over propaganda videos showing two emaciated Israeli captives.
Tens of thousands of protestors joined a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening – some holding placards reading 'Stop the war' and 'Leave no one behind' – as they called for Netanyahu to strike a deal that would free the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
Videos released by the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad last week showed hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski in a visibly fragile state – images that galvanized a forceful reaction both at home and abroad.
On Sunday, the International Red Cross (ICRC) in Israel and the Occupied Territories said that it was 'appalled' by the videos and urged that the 'dire situation must come to an end.'
Several world leaders also condemned the videos of the Israel hostages, with French President Emmanuel Macron describing them as 'unbearable' and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz saying the images 'show that Hamas should have no role in Gaza's future.'
Netanyahu's office said on Sunday that the prime minister spoke with Julien Lerisson, the head of the Red Cross delegation in the region, to request 'his involvement in the immediate provision of food and medical care for the hostages.'
The office also repeated Netanyahu's denial that starvation was rife in the enclave, despite a UN-backed food security agency's warning this week that 'the worst-case scenario of famine' is unfolding in Gaza.
Hamas has said it is prepared to 'deal positively' with any Red Cross request to deliver food and medicine to hostages, but only on the condition that humanitarian corridors are opened up in Gaza.
The terror group claims that the hostages' emaciated state is a reflection of worsening conditions in the strip. However, other hostages who have been freed in the past have similarly appeared gaunt and frail at the time of their release and described malnourishment while in captivity.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, said this weekend that the group does not intentionally starve the hostages, and that they eat the same food that Hamas fighters and the general Gaza population eat. 'They will not receive any special privileges amid the crime of starvation and siege,' he added.
A member of Hamas' political bureau, Izzat Al-Rashiq, described the images as 'the definitive response to all who deny the existence of famine in Gaza.'
Malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza spiked in July, the latest sign of a worsening hunger crisis, the World Health Organization warned last week. The agency said the enclave's malnutrition rates reached 'alarming levels,' with over 5,000 children under five admitted for outpatient treatment of malnutrition in just the first two weeks of July.
Gazans also face lethal danger when attempting to collect aid from distribution sites, where violent clashes can erupt. On Sunday, a shooting incident near an aid site in northern Gaza killed at least 13 people and left dozens wounded, according to the Emergency and Medical Services in Gaza.
Allowing Red Cross access would be a shift for Hamas, which has previously opposed any access to the hostages by the humanitarian group. The ICRC, which has only facilitated previous releases of hostages throughout the war, said in March that it was 'hugely disappointing' to have not yet been able to visit any hostages so far, emphasizing that it was not for lack of trying.
Recent ceasefire talks have borne little fruit, with Israeli and US negotiators recalled from negotiations last month. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at the time blamed Hamas for poor coordination and 'lack of desire to reach a ceasefire,' saying the US would consider 'alternative options.'
On Sunday, Netanyahu cited the latest images of Hamas captives as evidence of bad faith. 'When I see this, I understand exactly what Hamas wants. They don't want a deal. They want to break us with these horrifying videos, with the false horror propaganda they're spreading around the world,' he said.
The Israeli leader is now 'pushing for the freeing of the hostages through military defeat (of Hamas),' one Israeli official told CNN on Sunday – a route that the hostages' families have repeatedly warned against.
'We are in discussions with the Americans. There is a growing understanding that Hamas is not interested in a deal,' the official said, adding that Netanyahu wants to combine the freeing of the hostages 'with the entry of humanitarian aid into areas outside the combat zones and, as much as possible, into areas not under Hamas control.'
As Israel's war in Gaza grinds on, it has faced increasing resistance from the Israeli public, whose frustration over the fates of the remaining hostages has intensified.
According to polling released by the Israel Democracy Institute during a ceasefire period in March, over 70% of Israelis supported negotiating with Hamas for an end to the fighting and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
The hostages' families have repeatedly urged Netanyahu to strike a deal, warning that Red Cross assistance alone will not be enough, and that further expansion of the fighting in Gaza could endanger the remaining hostages' lives.
'Netanyahu is preparing the greatest deception of all. The repeated claims of freeing hostages through military victory are a lie and a public fraud,' Israel's Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement on Sunday.
The group also condemned Hamas, saying it 'cannot hide the fact that we are dealing with an evil terrorist organization that has been holding innocent people in impossible conditions for over 660 days.'
Hamas publicly insists that it remains committed to hostage release talks – but only if conditions in Gaza improve first. The group recently stopped engaging in any discussions regarding a ceasefire or the release of hostages, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN last week.
'It is essential to improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation significantly and to obtain a written response from the enemy regarding our response,' Basem Naim, a senior Hamas political official, also told CNN.
'This is a condition to go back to negotiations.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump, Putin meeting agreed on, Kremlin says
The United States and Russia have agreed on a meeting "in the coming days" between President Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said Thursday. Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said a place has been chosen and will be announced later and the two sides are working out details but are targeting next week for the session. The meeting would be their first since Mr. Trump returned to office. The Kremlin announcement came after Mr. Trump said Wednesday there's a "good chance" he will meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy soon — as Mr. Trump presses Russia to end its three-year invasion of Ukraine. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that Russia suggested a meeting between Mr. Trump and Putin, and Mr. Trump is "open" to the idea of a meeting with both Russia and Ukraine's leaders. Asked hours later whether Putin and Zelenskyy had agreed to a summit, Mr. Trump told reporters "there's a very good prospect that they will." He said it's not clear where the meeting would take place. Mr. Trump's comments came just before his Friday deadline for Russia to either strike a ceasefire deal with Ukraine or face sanctions. It wasn't clear how the announcement of the Trump-Putin meeting would affect that deadline. Putin met with Mr. Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow earlier Wednesday. The U.S. president called the hours-long meeting "highly productive" and wrote in a Truth Social post that "great progress was made" — a change of tone after Mr. Trump expressed frustration with Russia for much of last month. Ushakov said Thursday that Whitkoff mentioned the idea to Putin of a trilateral meeting of Putin, Mr. Trump, and Zelensky, but Moscow "left this option completely, without comment." Mr. Trump also held a call Wednesday with European leaders and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. A senior Trump administration official told CBS News earlier Wednesday the meeting between Witkoff and Putin "went well." "The Russians are eager to continue engaging with the United States," the official said. Asked about the Witkoff-Putin meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: "We'll have some other discussions throughout the day, and then hopefully there'll be some announcements here fairly soon. Maybe positive, maybe not. We'll see." Zelensky on Thursday called for a face-to-face meeting with Putin to try to end the war, French news agency AFP reports. "We in Ukraine have repeatedly said that finding real solutions can be truly effective at the level of leaders," Zelensky wrote on social media. He also said he spoke with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and that "Europe must be a participant in the relevant processes." "Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side," Zelenskyy said. "It is time to end the war. Thanks to everyone who helps!" Mr. Trump has pressed both Russia and Ukraine to reach a ceasefire, but he has oscillated between blaming Putin and Zelenskyy for a lack of progress. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has grown irritated with Putin over Russia's continued attacks on Ukrainian cities. Last week, Mr. Trump demanded that Putin strike a ceasefire deal with Ukraine within 10 days, or Russia could face repercussions, including sanctions on Russia and countries that do business with it. That deadline runs out on Friday. "The secondary sanctions are still expected to be implemented on Friday," the senior Trump administration official told CBS News following the Putin-Witkoff meeting. Mr. Trump has already begun targeting some Russian trading partners, slapping an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods Wednesday because the South Asian country continues to buy oil from Russia. That brings the total tax on Indian imports to 50%. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev — the deputy chair of Russia's security council — responded to Mr. Trump's sanction threats last week by warning: "Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war." Mr. Trump called Medvedev's statement "highly provocative" and said he was ordering two submarines to be "positioned in the appropriate regions" in response. At other points, Mr. Trump has lashed out at Zelenskyy and accused him of prolonging Russia's invasion, which began in February 2022. He publicly argued with the Ukrainian leader in an Oval Office meeting, and in at least two cases, his administration has temporarily paused crucial U.S. military aid to Ukraine before restoring the shipments. Sneak peek: The Strange Shooting of Alex Pennig Quadruple murder suspect captured in Tennessee, officials confirm Neil deGrasse Tyson weighs in on plans for a moon-based nuclear reactor
Vox
6 minutes ago
- Vox
What makes Israel's starvation of Gaza stand apart
is a correspondent at Vox, where he covers the impacts of social and economic policies. He is the author of 'Within Our Means,' a biweekly newsletter on ending poverty in America. Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war has been well-documented by human rights organizations since 2023. Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Anadolu via Getty Images 'We are imposing a complete siege on [Gaza]. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel — everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we must act accordingly.' That was Yoav Gallant, then the Israeli defense minister, two days after Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 Israelis and took 250 more hostage. The following week, Israel's national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir echoed a similar sentiment: 'So long as Hamas does not release the hostages,' he posted on X, 'the only thing that should enter Gaza is hundreds of tons of air force explosives — not an ounce of humanitarian aid.' So why is it that it took this long for the world to turn its attention to this humanitarian disaster? Part of the answer is that in recent weeks, the situation really has gotten much more dire, after Israel ended its 42-day ceasefire with Hamas in March and stopped allowing any aid into Gaza for two months, as my colleague Joshua Keating recently wrote. But there's another factor: The images coming out of Gaza have been absolutely heart-wrenching. Photos and videos have gone viral — on news sites and on social media — clearly showing malnourished babies starving to death, as well as those showing children and adults with their skin clinging to their bones with barely anything in between. 'It is tragic that it takes those types of really graphic, really horrible images to break through,' said Alex de Waal, an expert on famine who serves as the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University. 'And that is such a terrible commentary on just a gargantuan failure.' This, of course, is nowhere near the first time horrific images from Gaza have surfaced and sparked outrage around the world. But there's something about the visibility of a human-made famine that, for many people — including some of Israel's most ardent supporters — crosses a moral threshold. Starving an entire population cannot be spun as collateral damage or merely the cost of war — a messaging tactic that Israel has turned to to justify its killing of innocent people despite plenty of evidence that it has routinely targeted civilians. 'You can't starve anyone by accident. It has to be deliberate and sustained,' de Waal said. 'It is beyond dispute that you have to starve people systematically because it takes so long.' Indeed, Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war has been well-documented by human rights organizations since 2023, and both Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare. Israel's mass starvation of Gaza is, by definition, a form of collective punishment — imposing potentially fatal consequences on every Palestinian living in the enclave, whether they are a combatant or an innocent civilian. That's why using starvation as a weapon of war is illegal under international law. But that wasn't always the case. What Israel is doing is part of a long history of weaponizing food and basic resources. Still, while there are many examples of countries intentionally creating or exacerbating famine conditions on populations, there are also aspects of Israel's current policies in Gaza that are unique. How countries have used starvation as a weapon of war Using starvation as a weapon of war wasn't always explicitly illegal under international law. The siege of Leningrad by the Nazis and their allies, which lasted from 1941 to 1944, was one of the deadliest sieges in history, killing more than one million people. Many of these deaths were attributed to starvation. An American-run tribunal, however, determined that the forced starvation was compatible with international law. After all, it was a tactic that the Allies themselves had used as well, notably in their blockades of German-occupied territories and in Japan. There are many examples throughout history of famines that were either entirely engineered or deliberately made worse through reckless colonial and war policies. In 1943, as the British empire's colonial rule of the Indian subcontinent was nearing its end, the Bengal famine killed up to 3 million people. Since then, studies have uncovered scientific evidence that the famine was not a result of climate conditions like serious drought. Instead, British policies, under Prime Minister Winston Churchill — which included confiscating rice and boats from the coastal parts of Bengal and exporting rice from India to other parts of the empire — seriously exacerbated famine conditions. Churchill denied this, saying that the reason there was a famine was because Indians were 'breeding like rabbits' and suggesting that if the situation was indeed as dire as people claimed, then Mahatma Gandhi would be dead. Another example is the Holodomor, the famine that killed millions of Ukrainians under the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. Joseph Stalin pursued a range of policies that engineered famine conditions — including restricting the movement of people, seizing grain even when there wasn't enough to feed the local population, and exporting grain even as Ukrainians starved — in part, historians argue, to tamp down Ukrainian nationalist movements. Several countries and scholars have since recognized the famine as an act of genocide. The US also used blockades as a means to advance its war interests. One of its military campaigns against Japan during World War II was named 'Operation Starvation' — which aimed to destroy Japan's economy by limiting the distribution of food and other imports. The military assault deprived Japan of essential raw materials and led to food shortages. That, along with naval blockades and America's destruction of agricultural infrastructure contributed to widespread malnutrition and starvation. It was only after World War II that the Geneva Conventions of 1949 established some rules about the responsibility to allow food and other essentials into enemy territory for vulnerable populations. But even then, by and large, starvation tactics were still permissible. 'The reason it was permitted was because the Americans and the British rather liked using it,' de Waal said. 'It really wasn't until the British and the Americans had abandoned their colonial wars — the American one being Vietnam in the '70s — that they thought, 'Okay, now we're not going to fight these kinds of wars, and we can get around to banning it.'' The Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, which were agreed to in 1977, finally prohibited the 'starvation of civilians as a method of warfare [or combat].' And just over 20 years later, in 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court officially codified weaponizing starvation as a war crime. How Israel's starvation of Gaza is different 'Here, what we see is all the ingredients coming together in a deliberate way. We see the [Israeli leaders'] statements; we see the total bombing of all the food production,' said Neve Gordon, a professor of human rights law at Queen Mary University of London. 'I don't think there's [another] case in history, because other cases had to do with other stuff going on that were not human-made. Here, the whole starvation — from beginning to end — is human-made.' Israel has also significantly limited traditional aid groups' operations and, for months, entirely blocked aid from entering Gaza. Generally, UN-coordinated aid providers, which include UN agencies and established NGOs, have been able to enter and operate in war zones. But since the ceasefire ended in March, Israel has placed unprecedented constraints on those organizations. Instead, since May, Israel has been coordinating with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a newly formed US- and Israel-backed private entity that operates militarized distribution sites in central and southern Gaza. Israeli troops have also shot at aid-seekers at GHF's distribution sites, and, according to the UN, some 1,000 Palestinians have been killed trying to get aid from GHF. Gordon calls GHF 'a famine profiteering company,' adding that it 'does not actually provide the necessary food, while producing these hunger games that everyone was watching, [showing] starving people are going to get food and getting shot at.' While Egypt has been complicit in enforcing the blockade through its border with Gaza, the reality is that even aid going into Gaza through the Egyptian border has to go through Israeli inspection. The result is that Israel has effectively vacuum-sealed Gaza, with full control of what aid gets in. Israel could have chosen to prevent a famine at any point. Instead, it has repeatedly hampered or entirely rejected efforts to deliver life-saving aid to Palestinians — all in contravention of international law. 'Israel is not unique at all in using hunger as a weapon of war,' de Waal said. 'What is unique about the Israeli one is just how rigorous and how sustained it is, and how it is in defiance of an international humanitarian capacity that can respond just like that. So if Netanyahu wanted every [child in Gaza] to have breakfast tomorrow, it can be organized.' One example of Israel's (and the world's) capacity to stop the worst from happening is the polio vaccination campaign that happened last year. When polio — which had been eradicated from Gaza for 25 years — resurfaced as a result of the humanitarian and sanitation crisis imposed by Israel's war, governments around the world pressured Israel to agree to a humanitarian pause in combat, in order to vaccinate children across the Gaza Strip. In the middle of the war, the vaccination campaigns were successful, reaching 95 percent of the target population. An effort to stop malnutrition can be similarly efficient.
Associated Press
6 minutes ago
- Associated Press
The Paris office of Israeli airline El Al is vandalized with graffiti
PARIS (AP) — Israeli airline El Al said Thursday that its Paris office was vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti, calling the act a 'deeply disturbing' incident as tensions between France and Israel run high. The graffiti was discovered Thursday morning. El Al said the offices were unoccupied at the time of the incident and no one was harmed. Photos shared on social media showed red spray paint across the glass doors and walls, including the phrase 'El Al genocide airline.' The airline said it was handling the matter with the 'utmost gravity' and working 'in close coordination' with authorities in France and Israel.' El Al added it 'unequivocally condemns all forms of violence, particularly those driven by hatred,' and said its planes 'proudly' display the Israeli flag. Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev condemned the act and blamed the policies of French President Emmanuel Macron. 'Today it's El Al, tomorrow it's Air France,' she wrote on social media. 'When President Macron makes announcements that give gifts to Hamas, this is the result.' The incident comes amid diplomatic friction following Macron's pledge last month to recognize a Palestinian state — a move welcomed by some European allies but strongly opposed by Israel. Israel's Foreign Ministry also condemned what it called an antisemitic attack and urged the French government to ensure the safety of El Al staff and offices and to bring the perpetrators to justice. In May, several Jewish sites across Paris were defaced with green paint, including the Shoah Memorial, three synagogues and a Jewish restaurant. France is home to Western Europe's largest Jewish population, with an estimated 500,000 Jews — approximately 1% of the national population. In recent years, antisemitic incidents have surged, with a sharp increase reported in 2023 after the Oct.7 Hamas attacks in Israel. These include physical assaults, threats, vandalism, and harassment, prompting alarm among Jewish communities and leaders.
