Families are scared for the health of Israelis Held Hostage
Frustrated Family Members in the End of the Fourth-Order War: The Idan-Nambu-Jaws Conflict
We all share the same frustration. Straziuso said the Red Cross understood the pain. “We’re not bulletproof, and it’s not possible for us to walk into a conflict zone in hostile territory without permission — to walk up to a group of people, most certainly holding guns that they will use, and demand that they let us inside. It’s not possible.”
The Red Cross stated in a statement that it is trying to get the hostages to allow their teams to check on their welfare and that they don’t take part in negotiations for their release. As a neutral humanitarian intermediary, we remain ready to facilitate any future release that the parties to the conflict agree to.”
Separate discussions about a possible release of some hostages are being conducted through intermediaries, with Israel and the United States communicating with Hamas only by way of messages passed back and forth by negotiators in Egypt and Qatar.
Public support for a deal in Israel has been building and there have been large demonstrations in support of the hostages, increasing pressure on Netanyahu’s government to win their release.
The fact that there is no specific timing for reporting on the status of hostages leaves family members with little to hold onto as the days go by.
Liz Hirsh Naftali, the great-aunt of Abigail Idan, recounted on NBC News how the 3-year-old Abigail watched on Oct. 7 as Hamas fighters shot and killed her mother and ran with her father and two siblings.
She added, “We learned that Abigail actually had crawled out from under her father’s body and, full of his blood, went to a neighbor, and they took her in.”
Rachel Goldberg, who is married to Mr. Polin, and other family members have said they have no idea when — or whether — they will discover anything definitive about their loved ones. Ms. Goldberg detailed the grief of a mother who has no idea if her son is alive “or if you died yesterday, or if you died five minutes ago.”
The Liberation of a Nir Oz Kidnap in the Gaza Strip and the Red Cross’s Call for the Release of Hostages
Activists in Israel mounted an aggressive campaign to demand more action from the Red Cross, where posters with the faces of the hostages are plastered everywhere.
When armed Hamas terrorists invaded her home on Oct. 7, Karina Engelbert was still recovering from a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery that had gone terribly awry. She was weak and easily fatigued, and a buildup of painful scar tissue on her chest caused tightness, limiting her mobility.
The militants kidnapped Ms. Engelbert, 51, and her entire family, including her husband, Ronen Engel, 54, and their daughters, 18-year-old Mika and 11-year-old Yuval, snatching them from the safe room inside their home on the Nir Oz kibbutz and taking them to the Gaza Strip, where they have been held for over 40 days.
The last time Diego Engelbert heard from his sister was on the black sabbath at 10:00 in the morning.
“We don’t know if she’s getting any medical treatment, if anyone is taking care of her, if she is getting any pain relief or any of the medication she needs to keep the cancer from coming back,” Mr. Engelbert said.
They range in age from infants to octogenarians, and include a Thai foreign worker who was nine months pregnant on Oct. 7 and may have given birth in captivity. Young adults with both psychiatric and medical conditions who can be fatal if not treated are common among kibbutz members in their 70s and 80s.
And then there were those who sustained potentially life-threatening injuries in the raid itself, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
The leader of the political wing of the militant group Hamas said on Tuesday that it was almost to an truce with Israel, after delivering a response to the mediation efforts in the Middle East.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement late Monday that its president, Mirjana Spoljaric, had met with Haniyeh in Qatar, calling for “the immediate release of hostages.”
The aid group said it didn’t take part in negotiations leading to the release of the hostages, as a humanitarian intermediary, and insisted that their teams be able to visit the hostages and check on their welfare.
Speaking to NPR, Medhat Abbas, a doctor at the Indonesian Hospital, said about 120 people were evacuated from the facility to Nasser Hospital in the south of Gaza. Gaza’s health ministry says at least 500 wounded people and more than 2,000 displaced Gaza residents remain stranded inside. The ministry’s spokesman said that the Gaza hospitals’Occupancy has reached 190%.
Israel has received international criticism for attacks on medical facilities in Gaza, as it insists hospitals are being used by Hamas as covert command posts.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the Indonesian Hospital had been hit by missiles five times since the beginning of hostilities.
A health facility with a lack of fuel is under an electrical power blackout and has severe shortages of water, essential medicines and supplies.
Gaza’s largest hospital is a refugee for starvation: the need for security and food security measures in the face of Israeli attacks
Earlier this week, Israel’s military released video it said proved that Hamas had used Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, as a covert base. Al-Shifa was badly damaged and its electricity cut off during Israeli operations to capture the facility. 28 premature newborn babies were sent to hospitals in Egypt for treatment, on Monday.
WFP and our partners need increased access to resources, like gas and fuel, as the existing food systems are collapsing to reach those in need. To make a real impact, we need hostilities to stop.
“With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation,” WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said, adding that the needs of Gazans could not be properly met with a single border crossing at Rafah, Egypt.
