Three more Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for 491 days were released this week. The three men returned home emaciated, gaunt, and with signs of suffering from severe malnourishment including complex cardiac issues and infections. Seeing them paraded by Hamas in a dehumanizing public spectacle before thousands of armed terrorists and jeering “innocent civilians,” it was impossible to avoid the analogy that they looked like people who had survived Nazi concentration camps 80 years ago.
In addition to deliberate starvation, there are multiple reports of the hostages’ physical and psychological torture, and sexual abuse. The massacre on October 7, 2023, that’s correctly noted as the largest slaughter of Jews on any one day since the Holocaust has now seen men and women returning, surviving unspeakable horrors, and looking the same as victims from 1945.
Waiting in the wings as a spectator, the International Red Cross (ICRC) has properly faced widespread criticism. The ICRC has stood by for nearly 500 days, never once visiting or checking on the status of any of the 251 hostages kidnapped 16 months ago, never once delivering medical supplies, instead telling family members of the hostages that they should be concerned for the Gazans, and enabling and participating in Hamas’ crimes against humanity.
Nowhere are the Red Cross’ failures and abandonment of the hostages more vivid than regarding the most vulnerable among them including dozens of women and children, and even elderly Holocaust survivors. And nowhere among the most vulnerable is this more evident than the Bibas family whose father, Yarden, was just released after an unbearable 16 months, and whose wife, Shiri, and two beautiful red-headed sons, Ariel (4) and Kfir (9 months) were kidnapped and have not been heard from since. The terrorists not only kidnapped the entire Bibas family, but made sure to film the terror in Shiri’s eyes, and Ariel screaming in fear, from multiple angles. Surely, the Red Cross should have advocated for the release of the Bibas family long ago, insisting on visiting the little boys to check on their wellbeing. But nothing. Simply, the Red Cross abandoned the red heads.
“Come now, Jonathan. Surely you must be exaggerating,” you might think. But no, the facts are incontrovertible. In fact, it gets worse. Just look at the spectacle in which the Red Cross has become party to. Upon the release of the hostages Red Cross representatives have willingly participated in a grotesque public signing of a Hamas “certificate of release.” Did nobody in the Red Cross, anywhere in the world, say, “No, we will not participate in your continued dehumanization of the hostages.”
In every case of the hostages being released, how is it that the Red Cross has allowed armed Hamas terrorists to surround and climb on top of the vehicles carrying the hostages to freedom, threatening and tormenting their victims even once they are out of Hamas clutches?
Why does the Red Cross transport the hostages in vehicles with clear glass windows, a vile invasion of privacy of people who have endured so much suffering, and providing no security for the released hostages from the blood thirsty mobs for whom one extra, “Allah Akbar” could trigger a deadly lynch.
Essentially, the Red Cross has been party to 251 war crimes, from day one, every day. That’s tens of thousands of cumulative days of war crimes to which the Red Cross has been complicit and has done nothing.
As Rolene Marks, an international journalist and media specialist noted, “The Red Cross is complicit in crimes against humanity, including starvation and torture of hostages. They have failed their mandate, not provided medicine, not demanded welfare checks, or done anything to rase awareness of or advocate for the hostages. They failed the Jewish people during the Holocaust and have failed the Jewish people today.”
Indeed, comparisons to the Holocaust are not just because of the visual signs of starvation of the survivors. Hiding behind a mask of “neutrality” the Red Cross continues to carry the shame of its complacency with the Nazi’s murder of six million Jews. During the Holocaust, the ICRC failed to denounce Nazi atrocities, and even provided an immoral cover up. The most egregious of these occurred in 1944 at Theresienstadt, used by the Nazis to deceive the international community. Afterward, the ICRC issued a deceitful report that contributed to inaction, and the slaughter of millions more.
Only in 1995, ICRC President Cornelio Sommaruga apologized, admitting its moral failure in not speaking out more forcefully. It seems the ICRC never truly learned from their mistakes, either due to lack of caring, or a deep seeded bias against Jewish victims.
In addition to justified widespread criticism of the ICRC, it has become subject of widespread ridicule. The best of these was a recent parody comparing the Red Cross to a rideshare app.
Today, Yarden Bibas faces the grim reality that his wife and sons may have been murdered. But of course, we don’t know because Hamas has never been forced to provide a list of the hostages and their status, and the ICRC abandoned its responsibility to ensure that at least this would happen.
Hillel Fuld, a global speaker, tech columnist, and startup marketing advisor commented, “The Red Cross has stayed loyal to its historic moral bankruptcy. It should come as a surprise to no one that they completely failed to do their job as it pertains to the hostages. Somehow anyone with a moral compass hopes deep down that this time would be different, but it never is.” Fuld’s brother, Ari, was stabbed to death in a 2018 terror attack, by a terrorist who was recently released.
Some in Israel have called upon the ICRC not only to be held accountable and castigated for their careless, inept collaboration with Hamas, but to be defunded and shut down. This should expand to other national Red Cross societies, including the American Red Cross, which by their own inaction and lack of bold steps on their own, are also complacent in allowing the parent organization not to fulfill its own mandate.
Due to ICRC and other international inaction, the Genesis 123 Foundation has launched a global petition to pressure Hamas to release all the remaining hostages unconditionally.
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