Federal Minister for Family Affairs Karin Prien, who is currently in Israel, sharply criticized Hamas for recently handing over the remains of a hostage who had already been buried instead of the body of a still missing hostage. “This is an unbelievable disrespect for the families of the hostages,” said the CDU politician in Tel Aviv. “And I think you also have to understand that the Israelis cannot accept this.” She hopes that it will be possible to continue on the path towards peace.
“The families are going through a nightmare,” said the father of a dead soldier, who also has German citizenship and is still being held in the Gaza Strip, to the Israeli newspaper “Jedioth Achronot.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also criticized Hamas’s handling of the hostages’ remains. It is unacceptable that the recovery of a body was staged, it said in a statement. Israel’s army had previously released a video that allegedly showed members of the terrorist organization throwing body parts wrapped in a cloth out of a building and burying them, only to later declare this as the supposed discovery of the body of a hostage in the presence of the ICRC.
“The ICRC team at this site was unaware that a deceased person had been buried there prior to their arrival, as can be seen in the footage,” the ICRC in Geneva said. The team was only involved in the recovery of remains, “without prior knowledge of the circumstances that led to it.”
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said the video proves Hamas is constantly lying – even though it says it doesn’t know where all the hostage bodies are.
