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Red Cross in Contact with Both Hamas, Israel on Hostages

Smoke plumes billow during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023. (Photo by IBRAHIM HAMS / AFP)
Smoke plumes billow during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023. (Photo by IBRAHIM HAMS / AFP)
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Red Cross in Contact with Both Hamas, Israel on Hostages

Smoke plumes billow during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023. (Photo by IBRAHIM HAMS / AFP)
Smoke plumes billow during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023. (Photo by IBRAHIM HAMS / AFP)

The International Committee of the Red Cross is in touch with both Hamas and Israeli authorities about hostages taken by Hamas militants during a deadly incursion, a senior official said on Thursday.
"We are now in contact with Hamas and Israeli officials as part of efforts on this issue," said Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC regional director, who called for their immediate release.
"As a neutral intermediary we stand ready to conduct humanitarian visits; facilitate communication between hostages and family members; and to facilitate any eventual release," he added.

Hamas fighters breached the border fence enclosing the Gaza Strip enclave at the weekend, rampaging through towns and villages and killing 1,200 people while taking scores of hostages, the Israeli military has said.

Roughly 150 people were also abducted by Hamas.

Israeli jets have pounded Gazan targets for days in retribution, and the death toll there has risen to 1,200, Palestinian media reported, citing Gaza's health ministry.

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Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
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Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has begun a tour of military positions in the country’s south, almost a month after a ceasefire deal that ended the war between Israel and the Hezbollah group that battered the country.
Najib Mikati on Monday was on his first visit to the southern frontlines, where Lebanese soldiers under the US-brokered deal are expected to gradually deploy, with Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops both expected to withdraw by the end of next month, The Associated Press said.
Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed its frustration over ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights in the country.
“We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important being the enemy's (Israel's) withdrawal from all the lands it encroached on during its recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun in a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern town of Marjayoun. “Then the army can carry out its tasks in full.”
The Lebanese military for years has relied on financial aid to stay functional, primarily from the United States and other Western countries. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is hoping that the war’s end and ceasefire deal will bring about more funding to increase the military’s capacity to deploy in the south, where Hezbollah’s armed units were notably present.
Though they were not active combatants, the Lebanese military said that dozens of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on their premises or patrolling convoys in the south. The Israeli army acknowledged some of these attacks.