France’s foreign minister looks to prevent Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalation in Lebanon visit

JERUSALEM: Israel gave a grim account Monday of seven freed hostages’ health, saying that despite a “show” by Hamas to present them as healthy and smiling, they faced a long recovery from their ordeal.
The seven women freed so far under Israel’s ceasefire deal with the Palestinian militant group were all malnourished, exposed to psychological suffering and wounded in various ways, said the deputy chief of the Israeli army’s medical corps, Col. Avi Benov.
Images of four Israeli soldiers — aged 19 and 20 — released in Gaza on Saturday by Hamas showed them looking healthy and smiling. They greeted people around them and clutched parting gifts in paper bags as they were handed over to the Red Cross.
But Benov said there was more to the story.
“They were given more food in the days before (their release), they were allowed to shower, they were given (new) clothes,” he said in a video call open to the media.
“This is part of the show organized by Hamas.”
Since the deal took effect on January 19, the militants have freed a total of seven Israeli hostages in exchange for 290 prisoners, all Palestinians except for one Jordanian.
But despite the hostages’ joy and relief at being reunited with their families, it “will take time” for them to recover, said Benov.
Hospitalized after their release, the women have been diagnosed with physical health problems including malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies and a metabolic system “in bad shape,” he said.
Some of the hostages had been held for the past eight months in tunnels, Benov said.
“For them it’s more complicated because light, sun and to be able to talk with someone are essential elements to be physically and mentally healthy,” he said, without naming them or giving further details.
All the hostages were “wounded one way or the other” when they were captured on October 7, 2023 in the Hamas attack that ignited the ensuing war, Benov said.
Their wounds were poorly treated in captivity, or not at all, he added.
Hostages who were freed during a previous truce in November 2023 have said some wounded captives were operated on with no anaesthesia.
But the most “complicated” wounds are psychological, said Benov.
“Even if they look happy, a fear remains. It’s hard for them to believe that this time around they’re in good hands, that it’s not another show organized by Hamas,” he said.
Benov declined to answer a question on whether the hostages had been victims of physical abuse, torture or sexual violence, saying it was important to “protect their privacy.”
“They will tell what they went through, if they want to, in a few weeks or a few months,” he said.
An Israeli health ministry report sent in December to the United Nations special rapporteur on torture said the hostages released in November 2023 had suffered various forms of physical and psychological violence.
It said freed hostages had reported being branded with hot irons, beaten, sexually assaulted, held in isolation and deprived of food.
Numerous ex-hostages showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and survivor’s guilt, the report said.
Benov said hostages set for release in the coming weeks would likely be in even worse health.
Under the deal, they include captive men over 50 or in poor health.
“We are expecting that the next hostages to be released, who are older, with some of them already ill when they were kidnapped, will come back in worse condition,” he said.

UNITED NATIONS: Israel’s president attacked the UN General Assembly in a speech on Monday marking the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust, accusing the body of exhibiting “moral bankruptcy” and failing to confront anti-Semitism.
Isaac Herzog addressed the forum during worldwide commemorations of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered.
“Today, we find ourselves yet again at a dangerous crossroads in the history of this institution,” Herzog said at the New York headquarters of the United Nations which Israel has repeatedly condemned since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.
“Rather than fulfilling its purpose and fighting courageously against a global epidemic of jihadists, murderers, and abhorrent terror, time and again this assembly has exhibited moral bankruptcy.”
UN bodies like the International Criminal Court, which issued a warrant for the arrest of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, “opt for outrageous hypocrisy and protection of the perpetrators of the atrocities.”
“How is it possible that international institutions, which began as an anti-Nazi alliance, are allowing anti-Semitic genocidal doctrines to flourish uninterrupted in the wake of the largest massacre of Jews since World War II?” he added referring to the October 7 attacks.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,317 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Ahead of Herzog’s denunciation of the UN, its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the “appalling October 7 terror attacks by Hamas” — as well as the rising tide of anti-Semitism globally.
“Today, our world is fractured and dangerous. Eighty years since the Holocaust’s end, anti-Semitism is still with us — fueled by the same lies and loathing that made the Nazi genocide possible. And it is rising,” he said on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Indisputable historical facts are being distorted, diminished, and dismissed. Efforts are being made to recast and rehabilitate Nazis and their collaborators. We must stand up to these outrages.
“The history of the Holocaust shows us what can happen when people choose not to see and not to act.”