The International Committee of the Red Cross participated Thursday in the gruesome handover ceremony of four bodies of Israeli hostages who were abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and died in captivity in Gaza.
The handover was part of a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. The bodies of four Israelis — Oded Lifshitz, 84; and mother Shiri Bibas, 33, with her two children Ariel, 5, and Kfir, 2 — were handed over as part of the first phase of the deal, involving the release of 33 hostages, living and dead. Hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists are being released in return.
The ghoulish details of the ceremony shocked Israelis, many of whom likened Hamas — and the cheering Palestinian spectators — to Nazis in their embrace of death.
As Hamas paraded the bodies of dead Israeli hostages, including two children, one a baby, Gazans in the crowd cheered, celebrated, whistled, and smiled. Not a single one of them showed any remorse. I’ve never witnessed so much evil in my life.pic.twitter.com/DdVS5Lku1r
— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) February 20, 2025
A representative of the Red Cross signed documents next to masked Hamas terrorists on a stage that depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a bloodthirsty vampire, and that held the four coffins of the hostages, with signs on the adult coffins listing October 7 as the date of their “arrest.” The Red Cross representative did not object.
The Red Cross has willingly participated in other chaotic and abuse Hamas displays when hostages have been released. Many of the Israeli hostages who have endured these spectacles have described them as the most traumatic and frightening part of their captivity. The Red Cross has not visited the hostages once during their captivity.
One released hostage said that he was even held underneath the offices of the Red Cross in Gaza for several hours, thinking the entire time that he was going to be executed.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
