Published: 20 October 2023
Last updated: 18 March 2024
US intelligence has determined a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket was responsible for deaths of 471 civilians in a Gaza hospital.
Hamas has released the first video of a hostage, as fears intensify for at least 199 people kidnapped from Israel and taken to Gaza.
The short video clip shows Mia Schem, 21, lying on a bed, her right arm being bandaged by someone out of the frame. A long, fresh scar is clearly visible. Mia is one of dozens of young people taken from the Nova music festival during the Hamas invasion on October 7.
Speaking in Hebrew, she said: “I only ask that you get me out of here as soon as possible, please.”
Mia’s mother, Keren Scharf Schem, responded: “I am begging the world to bring my baby back home. She only went to a festival party to have some fun and now she is in Gaza, and she is not the only one.”
Israelis and foreign nationals — including babies, children with special needs and octogenarians with chronic health issues — are among those dragged by terrorists into Gaza. An IDF spokesman said this week that the military had some information about their whereabouts and would not carry out an attack that could endanger them.
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum, which represents some 700 relatives of those missing, sent a message to the Red Cross asking for humanitarian intervention. It said some of those abducted were in urgent need of treatment and lifesaving medication and were undergoing “unimaginable suffering.”
On a solidarity visit to Israel this week, US President Joe Biden said his top priority was the release of the hostages and that he was “working with partners throughout the region” to bring them home.
US support, humanitarian aid
“I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone,” Biden told Israelis.
Referring to the October 7 massacre as the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, he added, “The world watched then, it knew, and the world did nothing. We will not stand by and do nothing again. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
