^{Credit: Manuel Elías/U.N. Photo}

By Mike Wagenheim

“Being here with you today is a miracle, but I am here today to tell you, we have no more time,” Noa Argamani told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, in the first address from a former hostage in Gaza before the powerful, 15-member body.

“The crimes are unthinkable. We cannot imagine it happened, but it did,” Argamani told the council, of Shiri Bibas, and her sons Ariel and Kfir, whose bodies Israel redeemed from Hamas last week. “That’s why we cannot leave anyone behind.”

Argamani, whom Israeli security forces rescued from a Palestinian home in Gaza in a daring operation on June 8, 2024, testified during the council’s regular monthly session on the Israeli-Palestinian file. Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, who was taken with Argamani from the Nova festival, is among 63 hostages still held in the strip. Many of the latter are thought to be dead.

Argamani told the Security Council about the deaths of two captives taken with her. Yossi Sharabi died in the rubble of a building explosion, and Itay Svirsky was murdered by his captor days later, she said.

She spoke of a video that Hamas publicized of her pleading for help after the two hostages were killed. “I got nothing,” she told the council. “No doctors. No Red Cross. Nothing.”

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council that “the world must understand our hostages are living in hell on earth.”

“They have no hope without action,” he said. “It is time to unequivocally condemn Hamas.”

The Israeli envoy added that Argamani “would not have to be here today if the international community and this council had acted against Hamas instead of looking away and remaining silent.”

He insisted that the council recognize that “Hamas has no place in Gaza’s future” and “does not deserve to be a party to any negotiations.”

Dorothy Shea, the U.S. interim envoy to the global body, told the council that “we cannot rely on the tired ideas of the past and expect better results.” She also called for Hamas to be “eliminated” and “eradicated.”

Shea gave a full-throated endorsement of Israel’s decision to banish the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from Jerusalem. Israel has presented evidence that its employees have direct connections to terror and that some participated in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Jerusalem cut off all communications with UNRWA at the end of January.

“UNRWA’s work had been tainted and its credibility called into question,” Shea said. “Other U.N. agencies can and have done this work, with appropriate safeguards to ensure assistance is not diverted, looted or misused by terrorist groups.”

Also at Tuesday’s Security Council meeting, Sigrid Kaag—the U.N. point person on Gaza aid and reconstruction and special coordinator for the Middle East peace process—said she is concerned about ongoing Israeli military operations in Judea and Samaria.

“Israeli forces have deployed airstrikes and other heavy weapons, while Palestinian militants have used improvised explosive devices and carried out shooting attacks,” she said.

Kaag also noted increased Israeli military presence in Judea and Samaria after last week’s bombing of buses near Tel Aviv. (No one was injured in the explosions.)

The U.N. special coordinator lauded the Palestinian Authority for “issuing a decree canceling financial payments to families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned following attacks on Israelis.”

But Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas refuted the apparent cancellation of Ramallah’s long-standing “pay-for-slay” policy. Abbas recently said that the authority would “double its efforts” to make such payments.

Source: JNS