Hostage forum calls on Red Cross, WHO to condemn murder of 6 captives last month

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum along with Israeli medical and academic leaders appeal to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization, and the World Federation of Occupational Therapists to publicly acknowledge and condemn Hamas’s recent execution-style murder of six Israeli hostages.

One of the murdered hostages, Carmel Gat, was an occupational therapist. Two other healthcare workers — American-Israeli Keith Siegel, an occupational therapist, and Bar Kuperstein, a volunteer paramedic — are among the 101 hostages still being held in Gaza.

The letter calls on the organizations to “work for the release of all hostages and to treat this atrocity with the same seriousness applied to all violations against healthcare workers in conflict zones.”

“The silence of international health organizations regarding the murder of the hostages is disappointing and painful,” says public health professor Hagai Levine, head of the health team of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

The international health organizations have not issued statements.

The bodies of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Gat, were recovered from a tunnel in Gaza’s Rafah last week.

An autopsy carried out by Abu Kabir Forensic Institute found that all six hostages were shot multiple times at close range, indicating they were executed.