Posted on 12/24/23
| News Source: Times of Israel
The head of the Red Cross defended her organization’s response to the kidnapping of hundreds of people into Gaza, saying it was up to Israel — which has pilloried the aid group for its ostensible lack of pressure on Hamas for access to the hostages — to work out the issue with the terror group.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, also expressed frustration over Hamas’s refusal to allow the organization access to hostages held in the Gaza Strip so that its personnel can visit them, ensure their conditions and deliver critical medication.
Spoljaric told Channel 12 News that while the Red Cross had “continue[d] insisting” on access, Hamas had conditioned access on Israeli concessions, with the international organization left to wait until those demands were addressed.
She did not specify what those conditions were.
“Now Israel has to negotiate with Hamas with an intermediary which in this case is Qatar. They have to find this agreement so that we are let know where the hostages are because we currently don’t know where they are. We don’t know when and where to go to access them. That’s the simple fact. We cannot enforce this,” she said.
She noted the Red Cross’s role in facilitating the release of 109 civilians, most of them as part of a temporary truce agreement between Israel and Hamas. Some Israeli commentators have opined that the organization seems to have mainly served as a transport service from the captors to the border.
It is believed that 129 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 22 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.
“Now we continue to work with the two sides so that we can implement the release of the remaining hostages and also ascertain the fate of those that we don’t know what happened to them,” Spoljaric said.
Pressed on the fact that only one side was withholding access to the people it had kidnapped, Spoljaric insisted that Israel had to do more in order that the Red Cross could do its job and reach the captives, the majority of whom are civilians, including children, the women and elderly.
“Israel and Hamas need to agree on the modalities by which we can access and release the hostages,” she said.