While the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) played a small role in facilitating the transfer of Israeli hostages to the IDF teams who brought them home, its presence gave a tacit blessing to the awful scenes Hamas created during the handovers. Its members were even photographed playing part in the ceremony before Agam Berger’s release. Moreover, it did nothing to aid the hostages, obtain information about their condition, or call for their release during their captivity. Gerald Steinberg comments:

The anger expressed by Israelis and others is not caused by the ICRC’s failure to . . . force Hamas to allow visits and provide medications. The problem is that the organization was largely passive and failed to use its vast prestige to demand access to the hostages or campaign for their release. The Red Cross officials who travelled throughout the region, including Qatar, did not hold press conferences where this message would have been amplified. Nor did they publish public letters addressed to, say, the heads of the Qatari government demanding assistance in pressing Hamas to follow basic humanitarian and legal principles on the treatment of its “prisoners.”

When they appeared on major media platforms, the ICRC’s officials did not bang on the tables or make any demands of Hamas at all.

Whenever challenged on this policy, ICRC officials resorted to the “excuse that its hands were tied by the ostensible limitations of its role as ‘a neutral intermediary.’” Steinberg notes a disturbing continuity in that regard:

This narrowly legalistic policy recalls the ICRC’s shameful inaction during the Nazi Holocaust, when its officials ignored internal and external evidence of the German death camps and the genocidal “Final Solution.” The Red Cross leaders deliberated and decided to avoid public condemnations that would create friction between the Nazi authorities and Swiss officials. That policy was not merely passive—the ICRC was also a willing participant in Nazi propaganda exercises.

Regarding Israelis, the policy of neutrality is a one-way street. The ICRC has repeatedly and vocally joined the intense political campaigns led by UN agencies and allied NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which portray Israel’s counterterrorism in Gaza as egregious violations of international law.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.