Hamas has released four hostages in the last week, sending ripples of relief throughout Israel and the world. But dozens of families are still waiting for news about their captive loved ones and what condition they are in—and some are calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross to do more to reach the hostages.
Many of the hostages are still in need of life-saving medication, Adva Adar, whose grandmother, Yaffa, was kidnapped out of her home in a kibbutz over two weeks ago. Although Adar and other hostages’ family members have provided a list of medications that the hostages urgently need almost two weeks ago, the ICRC still hasn’t taken action, Adar told The Daily Beast.
More has to be done, Adar pleaded.
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“The Red Cross got a list of those medications,” Adar told The Daily Beast. “And we know that they haven’t got the medication to the people that need them.”
“They need their medication in order to survive,” she added.
The ICRC confirmed to The Daily Beast that it hasn’t been able to gain access to the hostages to provide medicines and medical attention.
“The ICRC has not been able to. We will continue to do all in our power to ascertain the fate of the missing and as a main priority now to gain access to those recently taken hostage,” a spokesperson for the ICRC told The Daily Beast. “This is of utmost priority for the ICRC.”
Adar’s grandmother was taken out of her home on Saturday, and hasn’t been heard from since. Footage from the kidnapping shows several Hamas terrorists driving off with Yaffa in a golf cart, looking stoically on.
Yaffa takes medication for several ailments, including heart failure, poorly functioning kidneys, and several herniated discs, Adva said.
The Red Cross is communicating with both Hamas authorities and Israeli officials as part of its effort to provide the hostages medicines and bring them home, the ICRC representative said.
Yaffa Adar, left.
Courtesy Adva AdarU.S. officials say they are still working to find out where every hostage is—a gap in intelligence that likely continues to complicate efforts to provide the hostages medicines.
“We’re not completely sure about the location of each and every hostage,” White House National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby told reporters Tuesday.
The Israeli Defense Forces said last week that “the majority” of the hostages are believed to still be alive.
Israel has indicated support for the ICRC in gaining more access to the hostages. Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, visited the ICRC’s Washington, D.C., office on Tuesday, urging the organization to push for a visit to the hostages and to continue work to bring them home safely.
“I call on the Red Cross to act against the war crimes of Hamas by ordering the return of all the hostages unconditionally, demanding an immediate visit by the Red Cross to all the hostages…” Herzog said.
The ICRC representative did not share details on efforts to provide medicines to those held captive, but said they are still working to gain access to the hostages.
“The confidentiality of this dialogue plays a key role in its positive outcome. We continue to call for their immediate release and, as a neutral intermediary, are ready to facilitate this,” the ICRC spokesperson said. “We also continue to request access to the hostages, so that we can ascertain their state of health and, above all, inform their families, who are desperate for news of their loved ones.”
Yaffa Adar, center, with a family member, was taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023.
Courtesy Adva AdarWhile many families wait for any information about their loved ones, the ICRC has been able to help reunite some hostages with their families.
Hamas has released four hostages in two separate release efforts since last Friday, with the ICRC helping to facilitate their transfer to the borders of Gaza. The organization has helped as a “neutral” party in both cases, which freed two Americans from Illinois, Judith and Natalie Raanan, and two elderly women, Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz.
“The release of the hostages in Gaza today is a sliver of hope,” ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric said on Friday of the Raanans. “We continue to call for the immediate release of all hostages and we stand ready to help them and their families in any way we can.”
Dire situation
For now, Adar and her family are holding out hope that “Tata Yaffa,” as her great-grandchildren know her, is alive and well.
Explaining what happened to Adar’s niece and nephew, who are 5 and 2, has been an unthinkable task, Adar said.
“The older one, she is 5, and we told her that we lost grandma,” Adar told The Daily Beast. “Because—what words can you use? We told her we are looking for her. She is missing and we are looking for her.”
Telling the younger one has been impossible, Adar said.
“He keeps asking, every day, when are we going to visit Tata Yaffa?” Adar said of the 2-year-old, her voice wavering “We are looking him in the eyes and we have no answer. We have no answer.”
Adar herself has a baby who is almost 1 year old. “Thank God I haven’t had to explain to her anything,” Adar said.
When Adar speaks of her grandmother, the roughly 200 other hostages, and civilians in Gaza suffering under bombardment and without sufficient humanitarian aid, she gets tearful.
“The world is talking about the humanitarian situation in Gaza… I don’t wish anyone to suffer from these conditions,” Adar said. “I wish the people in Gaza will the get the humanitarian supplies they need. No one deserves to die with no medication or no water or no food.”
As a ground invasion looms, Adar says she can only hope that the Israeli Defense Forces are making good decisions to keep civilians and hostages stuck in Gaza safe.
“I want to believe that whoever makes those decisions, has my grandmother and the other hostages’ best interest in their mind,” Adar said.
Yaffa Adar, center.
Courtesy Adva AdarGaining access to deliver humanitarian aid in Gaza for everyone has been difficult, though. Gaza is under an electricity blackout. As of Wednesday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the largest humanitarian operation in Gaza, said its shelters are four times over capacity, with people sleeping in streets. Hospitals are unable to provide proper medical care to ailing patients, due to shortages of electricity, medicine, and equipment. In some cases, surgeons are conducting surgeries without anesthesia on floors.
“An unprecedented catastrophe is unfolding before our eyes in the Gaza Strip,” UNRWA said on Wednesday.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas, has reported that 7,028 citizens have died since October 7, including 2,913 children.
And as Israel continues to bombard the region, warning of a pending ground invasion, humanitarian work has been treacherous and deadly. Already, UNRWA, which is providing relief in Gaza, has lost 39 aid workers in Gaza, UNRWA said in a statement on Thursday.
U.S. officials and others from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Netherlands have been urging Israel in recent hours to consider a “humanitarian pause” in order to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid to people stuck inside Gaza, stopping short of calling for a ceasefire. U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken urged Israel to start the so-called “pause” on Tuesday, suggesting that efforts must be taken to prioritize civilian life despite Israel’s interest in eliminating Hamas in Gaza.
“Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians,” Blinken said before the United Nations. “Humanitarian pauses must be considered for these purposes."
Egyptian Red Crescent members coordinate aid for Gaza at Al Arish Airport, Egypt, Oct. 20, 2023.
Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters“It means means food, medicine and water and other assistance must flow into Gaza and to the areas people need them. It means civilians must be able to get out of harm's way,” Blinken added.
U.S. officials have woven a delicate narrative about how the Biden administration supports Israel defending itself against Hamas, while also encouraging Israeli officials to enact a “humanitarian pause” to alleviate some of the human suffering in Gaza.
The National Security Council’s Kirby told reporters that Biden administration officials are telling Israeli officials to try to “prevent collateral damage” to civilian life in Gaza, but that they are not calling for a ceasefire.
President Joe Biden called for the level of humanitarian aid into Gaza to increase in remarks delivered Wednesday from the White House.
“The flow needs to increase and we’re working very hard with our partners to make that happen,” Biden said.
Biden also urged Israel to remember that Hamas doesn’t represent the vast majority of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, nudging Israeli officials once more to to avoid civilian harm in the war.
“We also have to remember Hamas does not represent… the vast majority of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip or anywhere else. Hamas is hiding behind Palestinian civilians,” Biden said in remarks Wednesday from the White House Rose Garden. “This also puts an added burden on Israel as they go after Hamas but it does not lessen the need to operate within the lines of the laws of war.”
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has suggested momentum is building for a humanitarian pause.
At the urging of U.S. officials, Israel has agreed to delay a ground invasion to allow for humanitarian aid to continue and to allow the United States time to rush air defense systems to the region, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
On Saturday, Oct. 21, the Rafah crossing opened, allowing some aid into Gaza. Since then, 64 trucks have reached Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
But the deliveries are not sufficient and fall far below the levels of aid Gaza was already receiving before Israel declared it was at war.
“These deliveries are a drop in the bucket compared to the vast scale of needs. They amount to no more than four per cent of the daily average volume of commodities entering Gaza prior to these hostilities,” the U.N.’s top humanitarian official in the occupied Palestinian territory, Lynn Hastings, said Tuesday.
UNRWA could be forced to halt its work in Gaza in the next 24 hours, because the convoys have not carried in much-needed fuel, threatening to upend access to clean drinking water in Gaza and what little hospital operations remain.
For now, desalination plants are continuing to run at shelters to help provide potable water, UNRWA said, but the limited availability of fuel will make this more difficult in the coming hours.
The Hamas-run Ministry of Health issued a statement Tuesday saying that hospital system in Gaza already “completely collapsed.”
“We confirm that 12 hospitals and 32 health centers are out of service, and we fear that more will be out of service in the coming hours due to targeting and running out of fuel," the statement said.
Israel has warned civilians to evacuate northern Gaza to avoid getting caught in Israeli Defense Forces’ attacks into the Gaza Strip. But the health ministry in Gaza said that it would be impossible to evacuate the north entirely, and those that leave for other regions in Gaza have been killed in strikes there too.
“There is nowhere to seek refuge in Gaza,” Hastings said. “When it comes to decisions on whether and where to flee, civilians are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
