Images of Israeli hostages projected at UN headquarters in New York, demand release

New York [US]: Massive images of Israeli hostages, including of babies, elderly men and women were projected at the side of the United Nations headquarters in New York, demanding the release of the hostages in Gaza.

The images of the hostages projected at the UN headquarters, by a group of Israelis living in the US, included 4-year-old Ariel, 85-year-old Yaffa among others. A message projected at the UN headquarters reads, “Abducting Israelis civilians is a crime against humanity,” “Hamas is ISIS,” “Bring them home now.”

The Command Centre in the US for the families of the hostages called for the release of all hostages, whose captivity they noted is against international law.

It demanded for immediate facilitation of humanitarian corridor to provide medicine and essential provisions. In addition, the Command Centre called for the intervention of world leaders, particularly Arab World.

Command Centre activists in New York said, “The world must know. The world needs to wake up. We will not rest until our brothers and sisters, who were violently and murderously kidnapped, will come home to their families.”

Earlier on Thursday, locals held a demonstration in Tel Aviv and urged the Israeli government to exchange hostages/prisoners with terrorist group Hamas.

The demonstrators have called on the Israeli government to talk to Hamas and ensure that the women and children who are held captive are released. They used placards and raised slogans to raise the demands.

“The government of Israel should talk to Hamas to ensure that the women, children and civilians who have been taken hostage should be released,” a local protesting in Tel Aviv amid Hamas attack on Israel told media.

Another protesting local said that the government should pull out all stops to make sure the kidnapped hostages are released.

On Monday, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations said that Hamas terrorists were holding as many as 150 people hostage in regions across Gaza after their raids on southern Israel on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Forces spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, on Friday said that the death toll from the Hamas terror attacks on Israel has jumped to 1,300 and more than 3000 have been injured.

He also touched on the ongoing efforts to collect the bodies and bring them to Tel Aviv for identification before handing them over to their loved ones. Calling it a “tedious and detailed process”, he noted that Israel has never in history faced such a situation.

“Unfortunately the number of Israeli casualties has risen to 1,300 Israeli civilians and soldiers and more than 3000 wounded. There is a massive national effort involving almost all of the security organisations and many of the ministries of the Israeli state, which is focused on taking the bodies from the same communities that we spoke about yesterday, like for instance … and other communities and the entire southern area, collecting the bodies, bringing them to a centre in Tel Aviv, identifying them and then making sure they are next to their kin. Their loved ones are able to take them and to provide them with a final and respectable burial that’s ongoing,” Lt. Col. Conricus said.

“It is a tedious and long and detailed process, taking lots of resources. We have never, ever in our history been forced to deal with such a situation and it is ongoing. It will take days and as we match and identify more and more of the Israeli bodies that are uncovered in the communities, we will have more information about missing persons,” he added.