JERUSALEM: Former Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife and children were killed while held by Gaza militants, has urged US President Donald Trump to press Israel to end the war to rescue the remaining captives.
In a first interview since being released from the Gaza Strip in February, under a truce deal that has since collapsed, Bibas said Israel’s resumption of military operations this month would not help free the dozens of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory.
“Please stop this war, and help bring all the hostages back,” Bibas said, addressing Trump in an interview with CBS News “60 Minutes” aired late Sunday.
“I know he can help,” said Bibas.
“I’m here because of Trump, I’m here only because of him, I think he’s the only one who can stop this war again.”
Palestinian militants abducted Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri nad their two young boys Ariel and Kfir, during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which triggered the war.
The family — and particularly four-year-old Ariel and Kfir, who was just eight months old when taken captive — became a symbol of the hostage tragedy in Israel.
Israeli authorities have accused Hamas of murdering Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas “in cold blood.”
Hamas said in November 2023 that all three were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit the location where they were being held. Their bodies were returned in February, after the father’s release.
Yarden Bibas, asked if he thought the resumed fighting in Gaza could encourage Hamas to release hostages, replied: “No.”
Israel resumed intense bombing on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued was proving effective in swaying Hamas negotiators.
Bibas told CBS News that while he was held in Gaza, Israeli bombardment was “scary, you don’t know when it’s going to happen, and when it happens, you’re afraid for your life.”
Of the 251 hostages seized during the 2023 attack, 58 are still held in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The truce since January saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages, including some who were deceased, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war
https://arab.news/2epw4
Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war
- Palestinian militants abducted Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri nad their two young boys Ariel and Kfir
- Bibas said Israel’s resumption of military operations this month would not help free the dozens of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory
Israel confirms ban on 37 NGOs in Gaza
- UN has warned that this will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory
- Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence
JERUSALEM: Israel on Thursday said 37 humanitarian agencies supplying aid in Gaza had not met a deadline to meet “security and transparency standards,” and would be banned from the territory, despite an international outcry.
The international NGOs, which had been ordered to disclose detailed information on their Palestinian staff, will now be required to cease operations by March 1.
The United Nations has warned that this will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“Organizations that have failed to meet required security and transparency standards will have their licenses suspended,” Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism said in a statement.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
Prominent humanitarian organizations hit by the ban include Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), World Vision International and Oxfam, according to a ministry list.
In MSF’s case, Israel accused it of having two employees who were members of Palestinian militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
MSF said this week the request to share a list of its staff “may be in violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law” and said it “would never knowingly employ people engaging in military activity.”
‘Critical requirement’
NRC spokesperson Shaina Low told AFP its local staff are “exhausted” and international staff “bring them an extra layer of help and security. Their presence is a protection.”
Submitting the names of local staff is “not negotiable,” she said. “We offered alternatives, they refused,” hse said, of the Israeli regulators.
The ministry said Thursday: “The primary failure identified was the refusal to provide complete and verifiable information regarding their employees, a critical requirement designed to prevent the infiltration of terrorist operatives into humanitarian structures.”
In March, Israel gave NGOs 10 months to comply with the new rules, which demand the “full disclosure of personnel, funding sources, and operational structures.”
The deadline expired on Wednesday.
The 37 NGOs “were formally notified that their licenses would be revoked as of January 1, 2026, and that they must complete the cessation of their activities by March 1, 2026,” the ministry said Thursday.
A ministry spokesperson told AFP that following the revocation of their licenses, aid groups could no longer bring assistance into Gaza from Thursday.
However, they could have their licenses reinstated if they submitted the required documents before March 1.
Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli said “the message is clear: humanitarian assistance is welcome — the exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorism is not.”
‘Weaponization of bureaucracy’
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
“This weaponization of bureaucracy institutionalizes barriers to aid and forces vital organizations to suspend operations,” they said.
UN Palestinian refugee agency chief Philippe Lazzarini had said the move sets a “dangerous precedent.”
“Failing to push back against attempts to control the work of aid organizations will further undermine the basic humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, impartiality and humanity underpinning aid work across the world,” he said on X.
On Tuesday, the foreign ministers of 10 countries, including France and Britain, urged Israel to “guarantee access” to aid in the Gaza Strip, where they said the humanitarian situation remains “catastrophic.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
