UN Security Council to discuss Gaza hostages after 6 captives ‘summarily executed’
Israeli envoy Danny Danon requests debate, laments it took ‘barbaric, cold-blooded murder’ of 6 hostages to prompt meeting; UN human rights chief calls for probe
The United Nations Security Council is slated to discuss on Wednesday the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza as well as the overall conflict, following the murders of six Israeli hostages by their Hamas captors over the weekend.
However, even routine bureaucratic questions about the meeting are already sparking disagreements between UN members.
Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon wrote on X early Tuesday that, “following my urgent request, the UN Security Council will finally convene on Wednesday for the first time since the October 7 massacre to hold an official discussion on the hostages.”
“It is sad that it took the council 11 months to do this, and only after the barbaric, cold-blooded murder of six hostages by Hamas terrorists,” Danon wrote, thanking the representatives of the US, Britain and France for facilitating the meeting.
The UN ambassador from Malta, who served as Security Council president in April, wrote back to Danon on X that the council had adopted a November 15 resolution that called for the release of all the hostages during humanitarian pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
“At the time of adoption your representative stated in the Council that Israel will not implement the resolution,” she wrote. “Stop spreading misinformation.”
Algeria, another Security Council member, separately requested a meeting on the Middle East crisis that will be part of Wednesday’s meeting.
Meanwhile, UN human rights chief Volker Turk called on Tuesday for an independent investigation into reports that six Israeli hostages were summarily executed by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza.
The IDF said the six were all captured alive during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war, and were shot dead shortly before troops found them.
The military announced on Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of all six — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Alex Lobanov and Almog Sarusi — from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they were “executed” with a bullet “to the head.” An Israeli autopsy found that all six hostages were shot multiple times from close range, indicating they were executed.
Hamas has since released propaganda footage showing all six of the hostages alive during their time in captivity, appearing to admit to killing them on Monday by noting that “new instructions were issued to the mujahideen assigned to guard the prisoners regarding dealing with them if the occupation army approached their place of detention.”
The UN Human Rights Office wrote on X that “we are horrified by reports that Palestinian armed groups summarily executed six Israeli hostages, which would constitute a war crime.”
It added that Turk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, “calls for independent, impartial and transparent investigation and for perpetrators to be held to account.”
Of the 251 hostages seized by terrorists during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, it is believed that 97 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
