Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
Dr. Alt Miller lives with her family in Chicago, and has lectured internationally on Jewish topics. Her latest book Portraits of Valor: Heroic Jewish Women You Should Know describes the lives of 40 remarkable women who inhabited different eras and lands, giving a sense of the vast diversity of Jewish experience. It’s been praised as inspirational, fascinating, fun and educational.
Demand the humanitarian organization to do its job.
In the depths of World War II, as war engulfed Europe, the International Red Cross (IRC) came to the aid of millions of prisoners held by Germany. The Red Cross helped millions of Allied soldiers languishing in German POW camps – but pointedly refused to press Nazi Germany on access to the concentration camps where millions of Jews were imprisoned and murdered. Today, the Red Cross – officially named “The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement” – is in danger of repeating its mistakes of World War II, as it fails to press for aid to Israeli hostages in Gaza, allows Hamas to shelter in its ambulances and hospitals, and wastes its moral authority by issuing one-sided condemnations that hold Israel to a higher standard than Hamas’ army.
Red Cross’ Mission and Makeup
The mission of the Red Cross is “to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield…to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found.” It declares itself impartial, neutral, universal and independent.
The organization was founded as a committee of various affiliated medical organizations in Paris in 1919, and has included Christian (Red Cross) and Islamic (Red Crescent) medical organizations for over a century. (The group grew out of the American-founded Red Cross, which dated to 1881.) For over 60 years following Israel’s founding, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement forbade Israel’s Magen David Adom (Red Magen David) organization from formally joining the group. Their opposition was so forceful that in 2001, the director of the American Red Cross, Dr. Bernadine Healy, was forced out of her position after she championed Israel’s membership. “I’d say the Red Cross isn’t a healthy culture,” she said at the time. Magen David Adom finally was allowed to join in 2006, so long as the Palestine Red Crescent Society joined as well as a counterweight.
Palestine Red Crescent Society
Many casual observers around the world assume that the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, is somehow apolitical and staffed by foreign, neutral professionals. In fact, it relies on local affiliated organizations to provide service on the ground in conflict zones. In some of the Middle East, that means the de facto Red Cross presence is the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
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Founded in 1968 by Yasser Arafat’s brother Fathi Arafat, the Palestine Red Crescent Society declares that it “operates in Palestine and the diaspora.” It operates throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Although, as a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the Palestine Red Crescent Society is duty-bound to help all people within its area of operations, the group has for years refused to give life-saving treatment to Jews who’ve been shot or otherwise injured in terrorist attacks in the West Bank. The group is headed by Mr. Marwan Jilani, the PLO’s former Deputy Permanent Observer to the United Nations and a former minister in the Palestinian Authority.
Operating Alongside Hamas
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society is undeniably offering lifesaving aid in Gaza. At times, Hamas has been critical of the organization, accusing it of colluding with Israel in helping to evacuate Palestinian civilians out of the north of Gaza during fierce fighting between Israeli and Hamas forces in Gaza City, when Hamas strenuously tried to get civilians to remain in the battle zone.
Yet the Palestinian Red Crescent Society works alongside Hamas, possibly out of necessity given the iron fist with which Hamas rules the entirety of Gaza. Captured Hamas fighters have described over and over again how Hamas soldiers operate out of Gaza’s hospitals, use Gaza’s ambulances to transport fighters and weapons, and use patients and civilians who seek shelter in hospitals as human shields.
Take Al-Shifa Hospital, which Hamas fighters used as a base as they battled Israeli forces in the first half of November. Prior to the current war, the Palestine Red Crescent Society openly worked “in partnership” with Hamas to upgrade Al Shifa Hospital. It was surely no secret to administrators inside the hospital that Hamas used Al-Shifa as a headquarters, yet throughout the long battles in and around the hospital in November, Red Cross and Red Crescent spokespeople condemned Israel’s actions over and over again – and never Hamas’, remaining silent about the open secret of Hamas’ control of the hospital. Red Crescent personnel brought medical supplies to the hospital and evacuated patients from the hospital throughout battles there, likely coordinating their activities with the hospital’s Hamas controllers. Robert Mardini, the Lebanese-born engineer who serves as Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross, demanded that Israel stop its military operations at the hospital immediately, using the authority of his position to condemn Israeli actions as heartless – though never said a word about Hamas’s use of the hospital.
Once Israeli forces succeeded in entering the hospital, it became clear that contrary to Red Cross claims, Al-Shifa had indeed been a military site. Israeli fighters found caches of weapons and tunnels used by Hamas fighters, video footage of Israeli hostages being brought into the hospital, and the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 66-year-old woman kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. A Hamas fighter captured in the hospital confirmed its use as a military base: “doctors were furious because Hamas operatives and operatives of other terror groups were inside the hospital…dressed as nursing staff and other medical staff ‘to blend in with the hospital wards.’” He estimated that about 100 Hamas fighters operated openly in Al-Shifa, especially in the Intensive Care Unit.
Another Hamas employee who’d sheltered at the hospital with his family, Hamuda Riad Asad Shalamah, said he moved his family to the hospital because he considered it “safe and secure” because of the Red Crescent’s presence there. Yet once in the hospital, he realized it operated as a weapons depot for Hamas. “What I saw was how they wrapped the rockets with mattresses and hid them…and also guns.” Hamas showed no concern for the wellbeing of the civilians inside the hospital, he said: if “one of their rockets would explode, it could kill fifty of us, or more.”
Yet the Red Cross has dismissed these claims, as has the Palestinian Red Crescent Society as lies. They have never offered proof that their workers were not present during Hamas’s sustained and extensive activities in medical centres and ambulances in Gaza.
Disproportionate Focus on Israel
Since the current war began, the Red Cross has provided some real aid and medical help on the ground in Gaza – and also issued lots of statements and sound bites as its leadership take to the airwaves around the world, granting non-stop interviews and issuing statement after statement about the war. Perhaps unsurprisingly given its history, the vast majority of these statements are highly critical of Israel, while it’s vanishingly rare for the Red Cross to criticize Hamas.
Between October 8 and December 11, 2023, 77% of Red Cross tweets were criticizing Israel.
Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch documented all tweets published by International Red Cross and Red Crescent President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger and Director General Robert Mardini between October 8 and December 11, 2023. Well over three quarters of all tweets – 77% – criticized Israel. Only 7% of tweets were critical of Hamas.
The Jerusalem Institute for Justice has studied the Red Cross’s social media posts. It found that in the days following Hamas brutal attack on Israel, which killed 1,200, injured thousands, and saw 240 Israelis kidnapped, the Red Cross posted “no posts, images, graphics, or videos” about Hamas’ attacks. Instead, the organization has shown a clear double standard in its public relations, criticizing Israel harshly and repeatedly, while largely giving Hamas’ targeting civilians and blatant violations of the rules of war a pass.
Failing to Help Israeli Hostages
Nowhere is the Red Cross’ failure to help Jews as much in evidence as in its sluggish reaction to Hamas’ kidnapping of 240 Israeli hostages. The Red Cross declares that the 3rd Geneva Convention, which lays out rules governing treatment of prisoners during wartime, gives it special powers. “We aim to secure humane treatment for all detainees,” the Red Cross notes on its website. “We visit detainees during armed conflicts and other situations of violence…” Except, it seems, when it comes to the Israelis being held by Hamas, who are experiencing many of the crimes prohibited by the 3rd Geneva Convention, including starvation, physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse and the withholding of medical aid.
Take the case of 84-year-old Elma Avraham who was abducted from her home by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Elma’s daughter Tali Amano and her son Uri Rawitz collected all of Elma’s medications and brought them to a meeting with the Red Cross. Amano recalls that the Red Cross official they met refused to take the medications: “They said no, we can’t.” Later on, the family went to the Tel Aviv offices of the Red Cross and tried once again to hand over their mother’s medication. Once again, Red Cross officials refused to take them.
Elma Avraham was finally released on November 26. The great grandmother, who before October 7 had lived independently, was semi-conscious and had to be airlifted to a hospital after her release. “She was abandoned twice,” explained Elma’s daughter: “Once on October 7 and a second time by all the organizations that should have saved her and prevented her condition.”
Under the terms of the November 24 – December 1 truce between Israel and Hamas, the Red Cross was supposed to be granted access to the Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas. Despite the stated aim of the Red Cross to visit the hostages, and despite the many ties forged through previous collaborations between Hamas and Red Crescent Movement, this never happened. The Red Cross’ inactivity now echoes its actions between 2006 and 2011, when it never visited captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held by Hamas in Gaza for five years. It also echoes the Red Cross’ unwillingness to help Jews during the Holocaust, when it declined to jeopardize its relations with Nazi Germany by demanding to visit Jewish prisoners.
Haranguing Relatives of Israeli Hostages
Another Israeli hostage who desperately needs medication is Doron Steinbrecher, a 30-year-old veterinary nurse. She takes medicine every day, and her parents Roni and Simona Steinbrecher are desperate to get her this vital medication, as well as to hear news about their daughter’s condition. In December, the Steinbrechers were invited to a meeting with the Red Cross; they assumed the organization would tell them they were trying to visit their daughter and brought her medication to the meeting. Instead, the couple were shocked to be lectured by Red Cross Officials.
Red Cross officials refused to accept Doron’s medication or offer reassurances that they would find out if Doron is still alive, and told his parents, “Think about the Palestinian side.”
Red Cross officials refused to accept Doron’s medication or offer reassurances that they would find out if Doron is still alive, Red Cross officials crossly told her parents: “Think about the Palestinian side. It’s hard for the Palestinians; they’re being bombed.” Doron’s anguished mother told reporters “we left there as we entered: without new information, without something new, and with disappointment.”
Demand Action
It’s time for the Red Cross to do better. A coalition of 50 organizations around the world is circulating a petition calling on the Red Cross to “locate and establish communication with the Israelis held hostage…Call for Hamas to cease its heinous acts of raping and sexually abusing Israelis…Condemn the use of human shields as military targets, including hospitals and schools, and the horrifying practice of exhibiting and mutilating dead bodies (and to) Facilitate the immediate return of the Israeli hostages. Consider adding your voice to this vital petition.
You can contact the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement online here https://www.icrc.org/en/contact or at:
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
19 Avenue de la paix
1202 Geneva
Switzerland
TEl: +41 22 734 60 01
Finally, posting about the hostages helps to keep the issue alive. Use the hashtag #Bringthemhome. Encourage others to reach out to the Red Cross to demand that it do its job.
