Israel said Monday the plight of hostages held in Gaza should top the global agenda, after Palestinian militants released videos showing them looking emaciated, heightening fears for their lives after nearly 22 months in captivity.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a press briefing ahead of the UN Security Council session on the issue, said that "the world must put an end to the phenomenon of kidnapping civilians. It must be front and centre on the world stage".
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing Gaza war, 49 are still held in the Palestinian territory, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
The UN session was called after Palestinian militant group Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad published last week three videos showing hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing weak and emaciated, causing deep shock and distress in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under mounting international pressure to halt the war, said on Sunday he was "shocked" by the "horror videos of our precious sons".
Netanyahu said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which oversaw past hostage releases during short-lived truces, to provide food and medical treatment to the Israeli captives.
Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said it was willing to allow Red Cross access to the hostages in exchange for permanent humanitarian access for food and medicine into all of Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned famine was unfolding.
The ICRC said in a statement it was "appalled by the harrowing videos" and reiterated its "call to be granted access to the hostages".
- 'Only through a deal' -
Netanyahu's government has faced repeated accusations by relatives of hostages and other critics of not doing enough to rescue the captives.
"Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to ruin," said a campaign group representing families of the captives.
In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that "for 22 months, the public has been sold the illusion that military pressure and intense fighting will bring the hostages back."
"The truth must be said: expanding the war endangers the lives of the hostages, who are already in immediate mortal danger."
Mediation efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have failed to secure an elusive truce.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people had rallied in the coastal hub of Tel Aviv to call on the government to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
Hundreds of retired Israeli security officials including former heads of intelligence agencies have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war.
"It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel," the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday.
The war, nearing its 23rd month, "is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity," said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service, in a video released to accompany the letter.
The letter argued that the Israeli military "has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas's military formations and governance."
"The third, and most important, can only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the hostages home," it added.
- 'We are starving' -
Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,933 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire on Monday killed at least 15 Palestinians, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid from a site in central Gaza.
In Gaza City, Umm Osama Imad was mourning a relative she said was killed while trying to reach an aid distribution point.
"We are starving... He went to bring flour for his family," she said.
"The flour is stained with blood. We don't want the flour anymore. Enough!"
Further south, in Deir el-Balah, Palestinian man Abdullah Abu Musa told AFP his daughter and her family were killed in an Israeli strike.
Decyring the attack on "young children", he said that "perhaps the world will wake up -- but it never will".
bur-ami/ser
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