The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on the Israeli hostages after shock over videos revealing their condition.
Israel wants to put the issue of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza "at the center of the international agenda," Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said Monday, on the eve of a UN Security Council meeting on the issue.
Portraits of the Israeli hostages, held in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Photo: AFP
"That must be at the forefront of the world stage. I will travel to New York tonight to participate in a special session of the United Nations Security Council that I promoted and that will take place tomorrow (Tuesday) on the hostage situation," Saar said at a press conference in Jerusalem.
Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, posted the announcement on social media amid widespread outrage over videos showing two very weak and thin hostages being held by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In another video , one of the hostages says he is digging his own grave while using a shovel in a narrow tunnel.
The videos refer to the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, which the UN says is threatened by "widespread hunger."
Israel has severely restricted aid flows into Gaza, while UN agencies, humanitarian groups, and analysts say much of what Israel allows in is looted or diverted under chaotic circumstances.
Many desperate Palestinians are forced to risk their lives in search of aid distributed through controlled channels.
Avyatar David, one of the 50 Israeli hostages. Photo: Social media.
On Sunday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for help "to provide food" and "medical care" to the Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
In response, Hamas's armed wing stated that it was prepared to respond "positively" to any ICRC request, but demanded as a condition "the opening of humanitarian corridors (...) for the passage of food and medicine" to the Gaza Strip.
The [Ezzedin al] Qassam Brigades said they "do not deliberately deprive prisoners of food," but warned that the hostages "will not receive any preferential treatment as long as the blockade and the policy of starvation" in Gaza continue.
Protest against famine in the Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP
The release on Thursday by Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad of three videos showing two emaciated Israeli hostages, identified as Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, has rekindled debate in Israel about the need to quickly reach an agreement to release the captives, kidnapped during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Former Israeli security chiefs and diplomats call for an end to the war in Gaza On Monday, 550 former Israeli security officials, including several former heads of the Mossad and the Homeland Security Agency, called on US President Donald Trump to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza.
" This war has ceased to be a just war and is causing the State of Israel to lose its identity," warns Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet, the internal security service, in a video released by the same movement to accompany the publication of this letter.
The former officials, including diplomats, considered that " Hamas no longer represents a strategic threat to Israel , and our experience tells us that Israel has everything it needs to manage its residual terror capabilities, remotely or otherwise," they maintain.
A man after receiving sacks of flour delivered to northern Gaza. Photo: AFP
They also stressed that the current objective is to "end the war, bring back the hostages, stop the suffering , and form a regional-international coalition that will help the Palestinian Authority (once reformed) offer the people of Gaza and all Palestinians an alternative to Hamas and its perverse ideology."
"We are on the brink of defeat," former Mossad director Tamir Pardo comments in the video. "What the world is witnessing today is what we have done," he laments, referring to the disastrous humanitarian conditions in the besieged Palestinian territory.
"We are hiding behind a lie we created. This lie was sold to the Israeli public, and the world has long understood that it does not reflect reality," they added.
The signatories of the statement include three former heads of the Mossad, the foreign intelligence service, (Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevy, Danny Yatom); five former heads of the Shin Bet, the internal security service, (Nadav Argaman, Yoram Cohen, Ami Ayalon, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gilon); and three former army chiefs of staff (Ehud Barak, Moshe Bogie Yaalon, Dan Halutz).
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