A former Hamas hostage has criticized the United Nations and other advocacy groups for their inaction over the fate of hostages still held in Gaza. Speaking outside the United Nations Security Council in New York on November 6, Mia Shem expressed her frustration at what she described as the UN's absence in seeking help for people in captivity.
“No humanitarian organization has seen or treated me. Where was the Red Cross? Where did the UN demand to have access to us?” said Mia Shem, who was released in November 2023.
The 22-year-old Israeli-French dual national described her harrowing experience, marked by isolation, lack of medical treatment and intimidation by armed kidnappers. She said: “For 50 days I was kept alone, with excruciating pain in my hand, without any treatment. A Hamas terrorist sat in front of me in a dark room with a gun pointed at my head. No humanitarian organization saw or treated me, even when my arm got worse.”
Shem also revealed how after her kidnapping she was held in a Palestinian home, where she was harassed by an adult and taunted by a child. Speaking to Channel 12, she said: “There are no innocents in Gaza, not even one.”
Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon also spoke at the press conference, sharply criticizing the UN's “complete moral failure.” He said the UN's silence on the issue was “inexcusable”.
According to a report in the New York Post, although the UN Security Council has issued statements calling on Hamas to release Israeli hostages, no specific actions or sanctions have been proposed to enforce these demands.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has maintained that as a neutral humanitarian body it cannot take a strong public position, although it has expressed a desire to visit Israeli prisoners.
During the more than year-long Israeli attack on Gaza, more than 43,000 Palestinians – the vast majority of them children and women – were killed. Nearly the entire population of Gaza has been internally displaced, with people forced to move from one place to another as Israeli rockets target neighborhoods, hospitals and even camps that provide temporary shelter.
The Benjamin Netanyahu government's war in Gaza was in retaliation for Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on a music festival and parts of southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed in the attack, and Hamas took another 254 people hostage.