Israeli Hostages Sue Red Cross for 'Abandoning' Jews

Five families whose loved ones were captured and held hostage by the militant group Hamas have sued the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for alleged medical neglect and bias toward Palestinians.

On October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and seizing about 240 hostages according to the Associated Press, prompting the Israelis to carry out extensive airstrikes and a ground offensive in Gaza. Close to 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Hamas-run Palestinian health officials, per AP. Israeli military officials say 118 soldiers have been killed during the country's ground invasion.

In late November, as part of a second hostage swap, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that 17 hostages had been transferred to Israel in exchange for the freeing of 39 Palestinians. More than 100 hostages, including several Americans, remain held by Hamas.

"The International Red Cross is reliving its mistakes of the Holocaust when it abandoned the Jewish people in its darkest period in history," attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who is representing the families, said in a statement. "We cannot accept this disregard and disrespect for human life just because they are Jewish."

Darshan-Leitner, who founded and is president of Shurat HaDin, an Israeli civil rights organization representing the family, filed the suit in Jerusalem District Court. She called the ICRC biased and claimed it doesn't care about the hostages.

She told Newsweek on Thursday that the history of the Red Cross "just indicates how anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli the organization is."

"It's never, since the day of its inception, acted on towards the Israeli or Jewish prisoners," she said. "It began in the Holocaust when the Red Cross refused to go and visit the Jews in the concentration camps."

She said the organization has an obligation to protect people on all sides in the Gaza conflict, yet said that it has only focused its efforts and is "working very hard" to protect Palestinians over Israelis.

"[It] does nothing, absolutely zero, for the Israeli hostages, and I want to remind you that young women and young men kept hostages by Hamas are probably being raped, being sexually abused or assaulted, being tortured," she said. "We know that because we hear the testimonies of the hostages that were released. And one of the jobs of [the] Red Cross is to prevent this from happening. They are supposed to make sure that their hostages are safe or not getting harmed.

"The Red Cross ignores and betrays its duties, a breach of its legal obligation, and therefore is being sued for compensation for the damages caused to the hostages, and being sued for orders that we asked the court to compel the Red Cross to fulfill its obligation to compel [it] to visit the centers to give them the medicine they need and to protect their well-being."

The lawsuit requests approximately $2.5 million USD in damages that, if successful, would be split among the five hostage families.

ICRC spokesperson Elizabeth Shaw told Newsweek via email that "it is easy to understand the anger and frustration" of those held hostage, as well as their families.

"Since October 7, the ICRC has continuously called for the release of all hostages and for their humane treatment," Shaw said. "We have been meeting with Hamas at all levels and undertaking humanitarian diplomacy efforts to gain access to people being held, to be able to visit them, and bring the necessary items, like medicines.

"As a humanitarian organization, we are pained and frustrated when we do not have access to people who need our help. It was a huge relief to facilitate the release of 109 hostages, and we reiterate our call for the release of the remaining ones. In the meantime, we continue our efforts to gain access to people still held in Gaza. The bulk of this work takes place behind closed doors."

Hostage suffers 'everyday humiliation'

One of her clients is Raz Ben Ami, 57, a German-Israeli hostage who, along with her husband, Ohad, was taken by Hamas from their home in Kibbutz Be'eri in southern Israel, according to Israel television network i24NEWS. She suffers from brain tumors and was released after 54 days in captivity.

The suit alleges that appeals made to ICRC representatives in Israel, Germany and the U.S. for medical aid were acknowledged via email with a hopeful message of "reconnecting with their loved ones," though no medicine was reportedly provided.

In a video interview that has gone viral on X, formerly Twitter, Ami said that she was never told anything after being taken captive and continually felt humiliated.

"At present, in the state that Gaza is in, it is not possible to cope," she said, according to a translation. "There are no medicines. I took a medicine and at some stage [a Hamas member] said to me, 'We don't have your medicine anymore.'"

She and other hostages received one meal per day, she added, and a shower consisted of pouring water over one's head. Toilets wouldn't flush.

"It's an everyday humiliation, mentally and physically," she added.

Darshan-Leitner said that the ICRC has avoided direct interaction with her since she originally reached out following the October 7 attack, claiming that they said they "don't work in Gaza" even though their presence has been documented.

"[These families] are furious at the Red Cross. Furious," she said. "Some of the families delivered, gave the Red Cross medicine that their relatives, the hostages, depend on and begged them to deliver them to the hostages, and the Red Cross refused. They said, 'We're not doing it. We don't intend to do it and wish the plaintiffs good luck.'

"There is there is huge outrage against the Red Cross among the hostages' families, the families and the Israeli people, obviously."

Update 12/22/23, 7:41 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.