“We share the frustration. We understand the pain,” said Jason Straziuso, a spokesman for the Red Cross. “We are not bulletproof and it is not possible for us to go into a conflict zone in enemy territory without permission – to walk up to a group of people who will certainly have weapons in their hands that they are going to use and demand that they let us in.” . It is not possible.”
The Red Cross has about 130 employees in Gaza, he said, giving him the opportunity to provide humanitarian assistance and visit scenes of war destruction. But even with this access, meeting the hostages requires an agreement with Hamas.
Mr. Straziuso said Red Cross officials had spoken to Hamas, Israel, the United States and other nations about the condition of the hostages.
But these conversations were shrouded in secrecy.
In a statement on Monday, the Red Cross said the group “insists that our teams be allowed to visit the hostages to check on their well-being,” but added that “the ICRC is not participating in negotiations leading to the release of.” “As a neutral humanitarian mediator, we remain ready to facilitate any future release agreed to by the parties to the conflict.”
Separate talks over a possible release of some hostages are being held through intermediaries, with Israel and the United States communicating with Hamas only through messages passed back and forth by negotiators in Egypt and Qatar.
A Hamas leader said in October that not all Israeli hostages brought to Gaza were being held by the group, a claim that is likely to complicate negotiations for their release. Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas’ political bureau in Lebanon, said other groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a separate organization allied to Hamas, were also holding some of the hostages.
Israeli forces freed one hostage in late October, and four others were released by Hamas about a week earlier. However, there were no further breakthroughs.
In previous conflicts, belligerent nations have prohibited the Red Cross from visiting hostages or prisoners of war. In 2022, eight months after the start of the war between Ukraine and Russia, the Red Cross still had little access to prisoners from either side. In a statement at the time, the group wrote that “blaming the ICRC for denying full and immediate access does not help prisoners of war or their families.”
But the fact that in the case of hostages during wartime there is no definitive set of rules and no precise timing for reporting whether they are dead or alive leaves family members with little to hold on to as the days pass.
Liz Hirsh Naftali, Abigail Idan’s great-aunt, told NBC News how three-year-old Abigail watched as Hamas militants shot her mother and ran away with her father and two siblings on October 7.
“Abigail was in her father’s arms,” Ms. Naftali said on “NBC Nightly News” with Lester Holt. “And as they were running, a terrorist shot and killed him, and he fell on top of Abigail.”
She added: “We learned that Abigail had actually crawled out from under her father’s body and, covered in blood, went to a neighbor where she was taken in.”
Hamas later arrested the neighbor, her three children and Abigail, Ms. Naftali said.
Rachel Goldberg, who is married to Mr. Polin, and other family members said they had no idea when — or if — they would find out anything definitive about their loved ones. Ms. Goldberg detailed the grief of a mother who has no idea whether her son is alive, “or whether you died yesterday, or whether you died five minutes ago.”
(Before Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg’s son Hersh moved to Israel in 2004, he attended the same preschool as my children in Richmond, Virginia.)
In Israel, where the hostages’ faces are plastered across posters proclaiming them “ABIDNATED,” activists have launched an aggressive campaign to demand quicker action from the Red Cross.