2023-12-05 13:10:26
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric, arrived on Monday for a visit to Gaza, where she denounced that “the suffering of the population is intolerable” and demanded that the hostages still held captive in the Strip be released. “I reiterate our urgent call for civilians to be protected in accordance with the laws of war and for humanitarian aid to enter unhindered,” the ICRC chief said.
According to the ICRC, his trip to Gaza aims to “advance efforts to alleviate the great humanitarian cost that the current conflict is making civilians pay.” Spoljaric will meet the ICRC team in Gaza and visit the European hospital, where Red Cross medical teams are carrying out surgical operations together with local health personnel. His trip to the region includes several stages, including a visit to Israel in the coming weeks.
In the week of truce in the war between Hamas and Israel that lasted from November 24 to December 1, the 105 Israeli and foreign hostages who were released by Hamas were handed over to the Red Cross, which coordinated their return to Israel at through Egypt. Now, after the ceasefire broke down, 122 captives whom Israel considers to be alive remain in Gaza, while the ICRC works for their return to Israel.
“The hostages must be released and the ICRC must be allowed to visit them safely,” Spoljaric said. In turn, while Israel continues with incessant bombings on Gaza, the president of the Red Cross denounced that the suffering caused to the civilian population in this war “is intolerable.” Nearly 15,900 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks since the conflict broke out on October 7, when Hamas made a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people.
As part of the past truce and the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners imprisoned by Israel (women and children on both sides), the Red Cross also took part in the logistics for the release of detainees from prison to Palestinian territory. Throughout the war period, the Red Cross was criticized by both Israelis and Palestinians for different reasons.
On the one hand, the ICRC was criticized for not providing more aid or visiting hostages held by Hamas, while Palestinian groups criticized it for not putting pressure on Israel to demand freedom or improvements in conditions for Palestinian prisoners. During his stay in Gaza, Spoljaric is expected to pressure Hamas and the Palestinian militias to allow Red Cross committees access to the Israeli hostages still held captive, a request from the families of those kidnapped.
“The unrestricted and constant entry of assistance into Gaza must be allowed. All persons deprived of their liberty must be treated humanely. The hostages must be released, and the ICRC must be allowed to visit them in safety conditions,” Spoljaric stressed, adding that Last week “brought a certain respite, a flash of humanity that gave the entire world hope of finding a way to reduce the suffering.”
Chaos in southern hospitals
Along with the Red Cross, the Palestinian Red Crescent has been providing ambulance and other basic health services in extremely dangerous conditions in Gaza since the fighting intensified. In recent weeks many humanitarian and health workers, including several members of the National Society, have tragically died while carrying out their duties.
The Palestinian Red Crescent denounced this Monday the death of one of its volunteers during a bombardment by the Israeli Army against his home in Al Faluga, in the north of the Gaza Strip. “Palestinian Red Crescent volunteer Osama Tayé was killed and employee Muhamad Abu Rukba was injured during a bombing of Al Faluga at 5:30 a.m. while they were at the home of the deceased Osama Tayé,” reads a statement from the NGO published in your X social network account.
The organization had previously reported an attack against two of its ambulances in the Fallujah area, also in the north, in which two paramedics and a patient were injured while on their way to a health center. In the hospitals of the southern Gaza Strip, chaos continues to reign, with relatives holding the IV bags of convalescents and others carrying bodies to be wrapped in shrouds.
After eight weeks of war, briefly interrupted by a seven-day truce, the doctors are exhausted. The lack of fuel and electricity, due to Israel’s total siege of the narrow Palestinian territory, forces them to decide when and in which units to use the generators. According to the UN “no hospital in the north is now able to operate.” Every day the ICRC transports the most seriously injured to the south, where, also according to the UN, “the remaining 12 hospitals are only partially functioning.”
The Nasser hospital in Khan Yunes, the main hospital in southern Gaza, is saturated. The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Sunday that he did not find “words strong enough” to describe the situation in that medical center, which also receives injured people from the north.
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