UNICEF demands Hamas to release Israeli children

© Photo: Maria Novoselova/Vestnik Kavkaza

Israeli children have been held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for a week now. UNICEF called on the leadership of the Palestinian faction to immediately release them.

Today, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell called on the Palestinian Hamas group to release Israeli children captured a week ago during a terrorist attack by the group's military wing on Israeli communities neighboring the Gaza Strip.

Russell firstly recalled that a week ago Hamas, having invaded the cities, villages, and kibbutzim of Israel, killed many children. Others were taken hostage and remain in danger in the Gaza Strip to this day, partly because the group's military leadership has vowed to kill captives if the IDF launches a ground operation in Gaza.

The UNICEF official pointed out that the capture of children, who under no circumstances can be participants in hostilities, certainly violates all international rules of war. She also expressed the organization's general concern about the fate of kidnapped Israeli minors.

In this regard, she demanded that Hamas immediately hand over the child hostages to their families in Israel.