Press Releases
Congresswoman Becca Balint and Congressman Dan Goldman Request Information from International Committee of the Red Cross, Urging Action on behalf of HostagesInternational Committee of the Red Cross Has Not Yet Made Contact with Any Hostages Held in Gaza
Washington,
December 18, 2023
CONGRESSMAN DAN GOLDMAN AND CONGRESSWOMAN BECCA BALINT REQUEST INFORMATION FROM INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS, URGING ACTION ON BEHALF OF HOSTAGES International Committee of the Red Cross Has Not Yet Made Contact with Any Hostages Held in Gaza Released Hostages Have Detailed Worse Captivity Conditions than Previously Believed Read the Letter Here
Since October 7, Hamas has taken approximately 250 innocent civilians as hostages. While being held, at least 20 hostages have died in captivity, many others are sick and/or injured and in need of urgent medical attention, and those released have revealed that the conditions of captivity are inhumane and illegal. “We appreciate your visit to Gaza last week and your call both for the hostages to be released – or at least for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to safely visit them – as well as more humanitarian aid to support displaced Palestinian civilians,” the members wrote. “But we do not accept Hamas’s refusal to allow the ICRC to visit the hostages and urge you to do all that you can to provide care and protection of the hostages…we stand ready to offer our assistance in your efforts to achieve these objectives.” Hamas continues to hold over 100 Israeli hostages including nearly 20 women. White Rescued hostages have detailed multiple instances of sexual assault which have been corroborated by medical doctors. There have also been reports that hostages have been drugged in order to make them look peaceful or “happy” during their captivity. “Given the widely-known depravity of the conditions of captivity, and the lack of public statements from the ICRC regarding such conditions or demanding access to the Hostages, we request answers to the questions enumerated below regarding why your organization has failed to properly execute its duty to ensure their care and protection, including the role, if any, that Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries in the region have played in assisting or obstructing your efforts,” the members continued. Congressman Goldman and Congresswoman Balint have asked the ICRC to answer the following questions:
Read the letter here or below:
Mirjana Spoljaric Egger President International Committee of the Red Cross 19 Avenue de la Paix 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Dear President Egger: We write to express our profound concern at your lack of response to the recent war crimes perpetrated by terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (“PIJ”), including the illegal abduction of civilian hostages following the brutal events of October 7 and their continued captivity in horrific conditions. We appreciate your visit to Gaza last week and your call both for the hostages to be released – or at least for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to safely visit them – as well as more humanitarian aid to support displaced Palestinian civilians. But we do not accept Hamas’s refusal to allow the ICRC to visit the hostages and urge you to do all that you can to provide care and protection of the hostages. We therefore write to request answers as to why your organization has been unable to execute its duties to ensure the care and protection of the Hostages; and we stand ready to offer our assistance in your efforts to achieve these objectives. Recently released hostages have revealed that they were forced to live in deplorable conditions lacking sufficient food, water, medication or sunlight. Worse yet, certain of them reported instances of sexual violence and rape, drugging, beating and branding. At least 20 died in captivity. Approximately 129 remain, 19 of which are female and 2 of which are children, and many are reportedly suffering from injury, illness, malnourishment and other ailments resulting from the living conditions and the lack of access to proper nourishment, sleep, medical attention and/or medication. Your intervention to attend to the hostages is required immediately. As you know, the abduction of civilian hostages is explicitly prohibited under any circumstances by international law, which refers to any such abduction as a “grave breach.” As such, there are no clear rules of internal humanitarian law (“IHL”) that even govern civilian hostages. But even if we were to apply treaties governing prisoners of war to the Israeli hostages, Hamas’s and PIJ’s treatment of them would easily be considered a clear violation of international law under Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute, the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages (1979), as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1979. As a critical threshold issue, international law requires those holding captives to provide proof of life, which Hamas and PIJ have refused to do. More importantly, international law requires those holding captives to permit wellness visits from the ICRC to ensure the health and well-being of the hostages. It is our understanding that, to date, Hamas and PIJ have refused to allow ICRC to visit the Hostages. This has been the case despite the fact that at least 20 have died in captivity; many others still remaining are sick and/or injured and in need of urgent medical attention; those released have revealed that the conditions of captivity are inhumane and illegal as discussed in greater detail below. Your organization exists to act in circumstances just like these. Indeed, the central mission of the ICRC is to “protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and violence and to provide them with assistance.” Given the widely-known depravity of the conditions of captivity, and the lack of public statements from the ICRC regarding such conditions or demanding access to the Hostages, we request answers to the questions enumerated below regarding why your organization has failed to properly execute its duty to ensure their care and protection, including the role, if any, that Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries in the region have played in assisting or obstructing your efforts. Remaining Female Hostages in Gaza Hamas is reportedly still holding 129 Israeli hostages, of which 19 are women. According to the Biden administration, the Palestinian terrorist organizations continue to lie about the existence of these female hostages – purportedly for the most nefarious reasons. As State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said on December 4, “it seems that one of the reasons they don’t want to turn women over that they’ve been holding hostage — and the reason this pause fell apart — is that they don’t want these women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody.” The obvious implication is that these women have suffered terrible abuse, including sexual violence. The Biden Administration has further stated that Hamas’s refusal to release the 19 women hostages under the temporary ceasefire agreement caused the termination of that agreement. More recently, multiple senior White House officials confirmed that the White House believes Hamas is not releasing the remaining women hostages because they have been sexually abusing them. Disturbingly, there is already evidence that one of the hostages, still in captivity, had been sexually assaulted when being abducted. Rape is categorically prohibited under IHL, including Article 44 of the Lieber Code and Article 75 of Additional Protocol I and Article 4 of Additional Protocol II.9 The accounts of at least 10 of the released hostages included details of sexual assault, and those accounts have been corroborated by medical doctors in Israel. These acts of sexual violence —against both men and women — are clear and medically verified instances of IHL violations. Hamas & PIJ’s Additional Gross Violations of International Humanitarian Law Information provided by the recently released hostages has revealed a litany of other violations of IHL. A released Thai hostage testified that he personally witnessed the beatings of Israeli hostages by their Hamas captors with electric cables. Article 87 of the Third Geneva Convention expressly forbids “corporal punishment” and “any form of torture or cruelty.” The lack of adequate medical care, nutrition, and daily medication is also a gross violation of international law. In many cases, Hamas and PIJ deprived hostages of these necessities to such an extent that it led to the deaths of several hostages during captivity, according to medical experts. Under Article 26 of the Geneva Convention, daily food rations “shall be sufficient in quantity, quality and variety to keep prisoners of war in good health and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies.” Hamas and PIJ have clearly not abided by this standard. Doctors treating hostages upon their release reported that elderly hostages had lost between 8-15 kg (15-33 pounds) — a staggering 10-20 percent of their body weight — while relatives of children reported that the child hostages had likewise lost “significant amounts of weight.” Indeed, according to certain of the accounts, food was so restricted that hostages would receive only “a quarter of a pita in the morning,” and in one case, a Filipino hostage reported being so hungry that he ate toilet paper (“that’s how my stomach wasn’t empty.)” Hostages have also reported horrendous quarters and sleeping conditions. One hostage described the room she was held in as “suffocating,” and revealed that she was forced to sleep on plastic chairs for nearly two months. Other hostages have explained that they were held captive in damp areas without access to sunlight or space to move around. Here again, as you know, Article 25 of the Geneva Convention requires not only bedding and blankets, but also that prisoners “be entirely protected from dampness and adequately heated and lighted, in particular between dusk and lights out.” Reports of the conditions experienced by the released hostages clearly fail to meet this standard. There are also reports, confirmed by doctors, that several of the hostages were drugged by Hamas before being released into your care to “make them look happy” for cameras. Drugging prisoners, with no underlying medical necessity and without their consent, is another serious violation of IHL, specifically as it relates to the Geneva Convention’s Additional Protocol II, Article 5(2)(e) with respect to persons deprived of their liberty for reasons related to the armed conflict. ICRC’s Efforts & Obligations Given the numerous egregious violations of IHL outlined above, it is imperative that the ICRC immediately attend to the remaining hostages held in Gaza to ensure proof of life and compliance with international law. We understand that the ICRC has made efforts to check on the hostages in Gaza but has been rebuffed by Hamas. We also appreciate that you recently called for the release of the hostages and demanded that the ICRC “be allowed to safely visit them.” However, despite the horrific treatment of the hostages remaining in Gaza, shockingly few international organizations and other countries around the world have aggressively and publicly supported the need to tend to the hostages. The ICRC has been unable to see a single hostage in captivity and has not obtained any proof of life, observed the conditions they are in, or if they are in need of medical assistance. While we appreciate the ICRC’s role in the transportation of released hostages, the status quo is simply insufficient and unacceptable as hostages are raped and die in captivity. According to its own statutes, the ICRC is obligated “to endeavour at all times... to ensure the protection of and assistance to military and civilian victims of such events and of their direct results.” Further, its purpose is “to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being.” By any measurement, the ICRC has been unable to carry out its traditional role as an independent monitor during conflict. Such hostile conditions during armed conflict are not unprecedented for the ICRC. Even during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the ICRC “often had access to” and “was able to register” captured soldiers and civilians that “fell into the power of adverse parties.” Despite the backdrop of mass murder and well-documented instances of ethnic cleansing and rape, the ICRC was able to gain access —even if hampered and limited — to the Bosnian Serb prisons during the conflict.26 As recently as Saturday evening, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Inbar Haiman, a 27-year-old Israeli hostage, had been killed during her captivity by Hamas.27 Additionally, the tragic news of the three hostages killed by friendly fire over the weekend only heightens the urgency and need for their safe return and for your organization’s protection.28 Their continued captivity not only places them in mortal danger, but prolongs the war for all parties. For the past two months, and despite increasing requests, your organization has had no access whatsoever to the Israeli hostages held in Gaza. We understand that the ICRC “cannot force [its] way in” and that it remains neutral “so that we can be trusted,” but its mandate of neutrality cannot be an obstacle to its duty to protect innocent hostages suffering under horrific treatment. Answers Required from ICRC As Members of Congress, we require additional information about the steps that have been taken to protect the well-being of the remaining hostages, eight of which are American. Accordingly, we request answers to the following questions: 1. What efforts has the ICRC made to gain access to hostages in Gaza? a. Please describe any communications the ICRC has had with Hamas or PIJ about access to the hostages, and include in detail what response you have received from Hamas or PIJ, whether directly or through a third party, explaining why they are refusing access. b. Please describe in detail what efforts the ICRC has made to communicate with other countries about gaining access to the hostages, and what response you have received. Please include any and all communications with the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, among others, as part of your efforts. c. Please describe in detail any discussions you have had with other international organizations to gain access to the hostages, including but not limited to the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders, and what efforts those organizations have made to support the ICRC in getting access to the hostages. 2. What assistance does the ICRC require in order to gain access to the hostages in Gaza? Specifically, what other nations could be helpful in pressuring Hamas to allow the ICRC to safely check on the hostages? 3. What can the United States Congress do to assist the ICRC’s efforts to immediately gain access to the hostages? 4. What efforts have you made to be responsive to the requests of the families of the hostages for information about their family members? Every day the hostages remain in captivity without proper care is one more day too many. Due to the urgency of the dire circumstances currently facing the hostages, we ask that you respond to this letter as soon as possible and in any event no later than December 29, 2023. ### |