A former Hamas hostage has lambasted the United Nations and other advocacy groups for their inaction towards the plight of hostages still held in Gaza. During an address outside the United Nations Security Council in New York on November 6, Mia Shem expressed frustration over what she described as the UN’s absence in seeking aid for those in captivity.
“Not a single humanitarian agency saw me or treated me. Where was the Red Cross? Where was the UN demanding that they have access to us?” said Mia Shem, who was released in November 2023.
The 22-year-old Israeli-French dual national detailed her harrowing experience marked by isolation, lack of medical treatment and intimidation by armed captors. She said, “For 50 days, I was kept alone, suffering from an unbearable 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. Not a single humanitarian agency saw me or treated me even as my arm got worse.”
Shem also revealed how after her abduction she was held in a Palestinian home, where she endured harassment from an adult and taunts from 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 criticising the UN’s “complete moral failure.” He said the UN’s silence on the issue was “unforgivable.”
According to a report in the New York Post, while the UN Security Council has issued statements urging 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 adopt a strong public stance, although it has expressed a desire to visit Israeli captives.
In over a year-long Israeli onslaught in Gaza, over 43,000 Palestinians — a vast majority of them kids and women — have been killed. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been internally displaced, with people forced to move from one place to another as Israeli rockets target neighbourhoods, hospitals and even camps offering temporary refuge.
The Benjamin Netanyahu government’s war in Gaza came as a retaliation to Hamas’ October 7 attack on a music festival and parts of southern Israel. At least 1200 people were killed in the attack, and Hamas took another 254 people hostage.