Visiting ICRC head tells PM public pressure won’t sway Hamas to allow hostage visits
Netanyahu rejects Red Cross chief’s claim, urging her to try publicly pressuring Hamas anyway; she tweets call for visits and release of hostages without mentioning Hamas
Visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that public pressure will not work on Hamas, rejecting the notion in Jerusalem that her agency isn’t doing enough to secure visits to the remaining 135 hostages in Gaza.
Spoljaric was in Israel for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war and also met with the families of some of the hostages along with President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Health Minister Uriel Busso.
“You have every avenue, every right and every expectation to place public pressure Hamas,” Netanyahu told Spoljaric during a portion of their meeting that the premier’s office filmed and issued to the press.
“It is not going to work because the more public pressure we seemingly would do, the more they will shut the door,” the Red Cross chief responded.
“I’m not sure about that. Why don’t you try?” Netanyahu asked the unconvinced Spoljaric.
Red Cross officials have argued that their ability to facilitate the release of the first 100 plus hostages and to play such a role in other conflicts is due to their objectivity, suggesting that publicly criticizing Hamas would lead to the terror group refusing to cooperate with the ICRC entirely. A US official told The Times of Israel earlier this month that the Red Cross has been privately pressing Hamas to allow ICRC staff to visit the hostages.
Israel and the families of the hostages have not accepted the Red Cross argument, blasting the international agency as a mere “Uber service” for the hostages Hamas has agreed to release and noting that it has refused to even accept the medicine that they’ve been trying to transfer to the many sick abductees.
Netanyahu brought a box labeled “medication and first aid for the hostages” to his meeting with Spoljaric and urged her to see to it that it reaches them and that her agency fulfill its mission.”
The premier also criticized some of the stances voiced by the Red Cross, claiming the organization has not differentiated between the brutal terrorism perpetrated by Hamas and the “unintended casualties that accompany any war.”
“I want to express my gratitude for your help in securing the release of the hostages, but at the same time, some of the statements that have come out from the organization seem to not make the distinction that I’ve just made,” he said.
Spoljaric’s office didn’t issue its own readout on the meeting with Netanyahu but she did tweet that the “ICRC must be granted permission, with practical details agreed between the parties, for visits to take place.”
“I reiterate: hostages must be released – immediately,” she added.
Recordings from a meeting between the ICRC president and Foreign Minister Cohen, Health Minister Busso, and some hostages’ family members late Thursday afternoon at Ben Gurion Airport were broadcast on Hebrew-language television news.
Spoljaric is heard repeating the same thing she and her staff have said many times: The ICRC cannot act unless given access to the hostages by Hamas.
“We can’t just go into a war zone, especially without knowing where the hostages are,” she is heard saying.
The hostages’ family members present used the meeting to again plead for the Red Cross to visit their loved ones before it is too late. In addition, the Health Ministry provided a report detailing the serious physical and mental health conditions of released hostages to emphasize how dangerous each passing day is for the hostages who remain in Gaza.
In a statement Cohen made following the sit-down, he accused the Red Cross of failing in its humanitarian mission.
“The Red Cross has no right to exist if it does not reach [the hostages], determine their condition, and provide them with medical treatment and medications,” Cohen said.
“Every day that passes is another failure for the Red Cross,” he said.
Thursday evening, Spoljaric was scheduled to meet at a Tel Aviv hotel with a small delegation of hostages’ families. Concurrently, other members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, medical teams, and the general public gathered across from the hotel to protest and reinforce their message to Spoljaric and the Red Cross.
“We are demanding the immediate transfer of medicines to hostages. Just as you see to medicines for Hamas prisoners, ensure medicines reach the hostages,” said a statement by the Forum directed at Spoljaric.
Since the war’s outbreak 67 days ago, the Red Cross has not reached the hostages to check on their condition, give their families signs of life or provide them with medical care, or needed medications. Many of the hostages have serious, chronic diseases, and some were badly injured while taken captive.
Two months ago, both the Israeli government and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s medical team provided the ICRC with a document listing the specific health conditions and diseases of individual hostages, along with medications they must take regularly. Thus far, the document has not been put to use.
“We even prepared the medications to give to the Red Cross, but they would not accept them,” said a spokesperson for The Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
Some 135 hostages remain in Gaza. At least 20 of those remaining are dead, according to Israeli defense officials, and terrorists are holding onto their remains.
One hundred and five Israeli and foreign hostages were released as part of a weeklong temporary truce deal that expired on December 1. After the deal was brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US, the Red Cross facilitated the transfer of the hostages from Hamas to Israeli authorities.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
