In talks earlier today in Gaza with the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hamas’s political leader in the coastal enclave, Yahya Sinwar, said “all institutions will be open before the Red Cross to ensure the standards of international humanitarian law are being applied,” a statement posted to Hamas’s website says.
The ICRC president, Peter Peter Maurer, had asked Sinwar to let him meet with Israeli civilians believed to be held by the Palestinian terror group, the Ma’an news agency reported, citing Palestinian sources. The two men talked for an hour together with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer left, shakes hands with Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar following a meeting in Gaza City, September 5, 2017. (AFP/MOHAMMED ABED)
Hamas is thought to be detaining three Israelis — Avraham Abera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, as well as Juma Ibrahim Abu Ghanima, all of whom entered the enclave of their own accord over the past several years — in addition to the bodies of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin,two IDF soldiers killed during the 2014 summer war between Israel and the terror group.
Hamas hasn’t admitted to holding the Israelis, so it is unlikely Sinwar meant he would let the Red Cross visit them.
— Dov Lieber and Stuart Winer
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