The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has failed in its obligations to help the Israelis taken hostage on Oct. 7 during Hamas' horrific terror attack. No visits have been undertaken to check on the well-being of the hostages or even get proof of life. Families who have come to the ICRC pleading to have medicines delivered to hostages with dire medical needs have been turned away.

In recent days, a complicated deal has emerged to get medicines to the hostages. While the ICRC is seemingly involved, it is still not living up to its responsibilities to visit the hostages and care for them, according to information currently available about the deal. It also comes over 100 days into the hostages' horrific ordeal.

At the same time, the ICRC, which is supposed to act in a neutral way, has been doing anything but —leveling harsh criticism at Israel but treating Hamas with leniency, even though Hamas has committed grave breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) by, among other things, taking hundreds of hostages, engaging in widespread sexual violence, and targeting civilian communities in a large-scale killing spree that left over 1,200 dead. In Gaza, the ICRC has ignored years of Hamas violations of IHL by placing itself within hospitals and misusing ambulances.

Tell Congress the EU Must Ban Hezbollah Terrorism

It has been 10 years since the European Union banned the “military” wing of the Hezbollah terrorist organization.  Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed terror group that has attacked American, Jewish, and Israeli targets abroad, such as the 1994 car bombings of a Jewish community center in Argentina, the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in London, and the 2012 suicide bombing of a bus in Burgas, Bulgaria.  The organization has a unified command structure that oversees all of the group’s disparate, and often illicit, activities.  A ban on Hezbollah’s military branch has not stopped the political wing of the organization from operating openly in Europe, as it has done for years.  Raising funds, recruiting, acquiring technological training and materials – all of these activities are allowed to continue with impunity in much of Europe.  And in the European countries that have not banned Hezbollah in its entirety, no authority can stop the political arm of Hezbollah from using fungible assets to support the organization’s military and criminal activities.

The U.S. Congress must urge the EU to strike a serious blow to Hezbollah terrorism by banning the organization as a whole.  Ask your Congress member to co-sponsor H. Res. 599, a bipartisan resolution that would urge the European Union to ban the Hezbollah terrorist group in its entirety.