Criticism of the Red Cross: Hamas hostages file lawsuit. Falling Christmas tree kills woman at Belgian Christmas market

Former Hamas hostages and their families stage a lawsuit against the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They accuse the aid organization of failing to guarantee the safety of the Israeli hostages and of failing to provide them with adequate medical care. The organization ‘Shurat Hadin’ filed a lawsuit in Jerusalem on Thursday on behalf of the families of 24 of the 250 people kidnapped by Hamas. There is also said to be a German-Israeli among the claimants.

According to a report in the American magazine ‘Newsweek’, Raz Ben Ami and her husband have filed the lawsuit. She was kidnapped by the terrorists from Kibbutz Be’eri and released after 54 days. It is said that she is suffering from a brain tumor. The 57-year-old reported on platform X (formerly Twitter) that she was not given any medication and was only given food once a day. The toilet didn’t flush.

Father asked the Red Cross for medicine for his son

The lawsuit alleges that requests for medical assistance to ICRC officials in Israel, Germany and the United States were answered only by email. This expressed the hope that they would “reconnect with their relatives”. However, no medication was provided. The television channel i24News showed fragments of a meeting between relatives of the hostages and representatives of the Red Cross.

A father begged helpers to do something because his kidnapped son had asthma. “That’s your job, right?” he said. The report states that to date no Red Cross representative has received and cared for hostages. “They were in a hospital in Gaza. “You could have made it a condition to hand over medicines to our children,” said one father in the meeting with ICRC head Mirjana Spoljaric.

Sarah Davies, who works at the ICRC office in Jerusalem, said people have the wrong idea about her work. “They believe we can do anything in a conflict,” she told the channel. To help, you need the consent of all parties to the conflict.

ICRC spokeswoman Elizabeth Shaw told Newsweek by email that the anger and frustration of the hostages and their families were understandable. “Since October 7, the ICRC has continuously called for the release of all hostages and their humane treatment,” Shaw said. “We have met with Hamas at all levels and conducted humanitarian diplomacy to gain access to the prisoners, visit them and bring essential supplies such as medicine.”

The organization Shurat HaDin, which filed the lawsuit, criticizes the aid organization’s behavior. “The International Red Cross is reliving the mistakes of the Holocaust when it abandoned the Jewish people in their darkest times,” Shurat HaDin founder and president Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said in a statement. “We cannot accept this contempt and disrespect for human life just because they are Jewish.”

ICRC head: In contact with Hamas

On its website, the Red Cross presents itself as an “independent, neutral organization” that “guarantees humanitarian protection and assistance to victims of war and armed violence.” It acts in emergency situations and promotes respect for international humanitarian law and its implementation into national law.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it is trying to release more hostages in the Gaza Strip. ICRC chief Mirjana Spoljaric Egger said in Geneva last Tuesday that she is in constant contact with the government of Israel and Hamas. Taking hostages was a violation of international humanitarian law, which the ICRC is supposed to uphold. She demanded unconditional release. She made it clear: “We are not negotiating. We do not get involved in political discussions.” When they were handed over, some of the released hostages were first handed over to the ICRC, which then took them to the border with Israel.

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