Families of Hostages in Gaza Are Desperate for Proof of Life: NBC News’ Lisa Naftali and Bethe Goldberg
Warring nations have made it hard for the Red Cross to visit prisoners of war. In 2022, eight months into the war between Ukraine and Russia, the Red Cross still had little access to prisoners held by either side. In a statement at the time, the group wrote that “blaming the I.C.R.C. for being denied full and immediate access does not help prisoners of war or their families.”
The I.C.R.C. does not participate in negotiations leading to the release of hostages, according to a statement released by the Red Cross on Monday. As a neutral humanitarian intermediary, we remain ready to facilitate any future release that the parties to the conflict agree to.”
Separate discussions about a possible release of some hostages are being conducted through intermediaries, with Israel and the United States communicating with Hamas only by way of messages passed back and forth by negotiators in Egypt and Qatar.
In October, Hamas freed four people it had held hostage and Israeli forces rescued one. There have been no new developments.
But the fact that there is no definitive playbook in the case of hostages during wartime, no exact timing for reporting about whether they are dead or alive leaves the family members with little to hold on to as the days slowly pass.
Liz Naftali told NBC News that her great-aunt’s family fled to safety when her mother was shot and killed by Hamas.
She said that they learned that Abigail crawled out of her father’s body and was taken in by a neighbor.
Rachel Goldberg, the spouse of Mr. Polin, has said she doesn’t know when or if they will discover anything definitive about their loved ones. Ms. Goldberg wrote about the grief of a mother without knowing if her son is alive or dead.
Israeli and Hamas Move Toward the Release, Families Wait With Hope and Fear, Towards the Release of the Kidnapped Israelis
Activists have mounted an aggressive campaign inside Israel, where the faces of the hostages are plastered all over posters that proclaim “KIDNAPPED”, in order to demand quicker action from the Red Cross.
Some families of those kidnapped in Gaza last month were worried that the deal to get them back might collapse, even though they were hopeful that their loved ones would return.
Yarden Roman, who was taken hostage by Hamas while on kibbutz Be’eri in the Gaza border in October, has been freed. The fear is that the higher we go, the less we will survive. There’s a lot of anxiety.”
The Israeli government and Hamas announced Wednesday morning that they would uphold a brief cease-fire in Gaza to allow for the release of the hostages.
Yifat Zailer — whose cousin Shiri Bibas was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with Ms. Bibas’s husband, Yarden Bibas, and their two red-haired children, Ariel and Kfir — said her anxious wait for news has been tinged by the hope that she might soon see her loved ones and the fear something might go awry.
“I’m trying to take care not to be happy too quickly,” Ms. Zailer said on Tuesday. It is possible that it could collapse tomorrow. We may see the hostages returning, but not some of them.
Kfir, less than a year old, is one of the youngest Israelis abducted by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct. 7. His family in Israel still does not know where he and his brother are being held, whether they are with their parents — or even if they are still alive, Ms. Zailer said.
Yarden, her husband, is likely to stay behind when Ms. Bibas, Kfir andriel return to their homes.
The video was released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group based in Gaza that took responsibility for the attack on Israeli towns. In the video, he asked Israel to bring him home. Hostages are usually coerced into appearing in such videos.
The Attack on the Nir Oz Kidnapped Hausfraud of Karina Engelbert and Her Cousins Phillips-Bahat
Ms.Phillips-Bahat’s family is optimistic, despite not knowing if her cousins would come home in the exchange.
When armed Hamas terrorists invaded her home on Oct. 7, Karina Engelbert was still recovering from a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery that had gone terribly awry. She was weak and easily fatigued, and a buildup of painful scar tissue on her chest caused tightness, limiting her mobility.
The militants kidnapped Ms. Engelbert, 51, and her entire family, including her husband, Ronen Engel, 54, and their daughters, 18-year-old Mika and 11-year-old Yuval, snatching them from the safe room inside their home on the Nir Oz kibbutz and taking them to the Gaza Strip, where they have been held for over 40 days.
The last thing my sister said to me was that she was inside the house, while I was sleeping on the black sabbath.
Mr. Engelbert doesn’t know if she’s getting any treatment, if anyone is taking care of her, or if she’s getting any medication to keep the cancer at bay.
They range in age from infants to octogenarians, and include a Thai foreign worker who was nine months pregnant on Oct. 7 and may have given birth in captivity. There are many kibbutz members in their mid-80s who were taking medications for chronic conditions like high blood pressure, and younger adults who have both psychiatric conditions and medical conditions that can be fatal if left untreated.
There were potentially life threatening injuries to some of the 1,200 people who were killed in the raid.