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Israel’s Hospitals Prepare to Treat Hostages Being Released in Ceasefire Deal
Supporters of the kidnapped Israeli hostages hold torches at a protest to demand a deal to bring every hostage home at once, amid Gaza ceasefire negotiations, in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel’s leading hospitals are preparing to receive and treat the hostages who are set to be released from Hamas captivity as part of the ceasefire and hostage-release deal agreed upon on Wednesday between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organization.
American Friends of Rabin Medical Center (AFRMC) said in an email on Thursday to supporters of the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva that doctors at several of the hospital’s departments and similarly those at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center, which is located on Rabin Medical Center Campus, are on “high alert for the hopefully imminent release of the captives.”
“While the country waits with bated breath for their release, Rabin Medical Center has all hands on deck to prepare for the highest quality of care and treatment for these Israeli hostages,” AFRMC said.
According to Israel’s Health Ministry, the hostages will be treated at Sheba Medical Center, Sourasky Medical Center, Rabin Medical Center (including the Schneider Children’s Medical Center), or Shamir Medical Center. Hostages who need immediate treatment in serious conditions may also be treated at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba and Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. Dr. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the Health Ministry’s medical division, noted that it has not been decided yet which hospital will receive the hostages first and that the decision will be made based on a hostage’s conditions, according to Israel Hayom.
The Israel Defense Forces said “Wings of Freedom” is the name given to the Israeli military’s preparations for the return of the hostages as part of the new ceasefire agreement.
Concerns regarding the variety of serious conditions that the released hostages might have include infectious diseases, lack of nutrition, and physical injuries.
“Lack of adequate water, food, air, and sunlight for such an extended period of time will also greatly affect these hostages recovery,” AFRMC added. “Many elements of their state of health, both mental and physical, is still in question. The hospital is preparing for a wide range of wounds, injuries, and ailments, as well as the psychological and emotional impact of being held hostage for over 14 months.”
The Schneider Children’s Medical Center is one of the few hospitals in Israel that focuses on treating the physical and psychological injuries of children. The Rabin Medical Center has one of the only rehabilitation centers with a full-time specialized medical staff that is dedicated to treating victims of war. The hospital also has an emergency trauma fund accepting donations from the public that will help support trauma and psychological treatment for returning hostages; emergency orthopedic surgery equipment and supplies; trauma training for medical staff members; and rehabilitation equipment and supplies.
In November 2023, Israeli Health Ministry officials created guidelines for treating hostages returning home who were abducted by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during the deadly massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That protocol has “since been further developed” after the initial group of released hostages were treated by the Rabin Medical Center, AFRMC said. The guidelines include a “timeline of hospitalization, re-introduction to society, family visits, and psychological care.”
A senior level social services manager at a central hospital in Israel, who has treated hostages previously released by Hamas since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, explained to Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth how this hostage release will be different than previous ones.
“We understand that we’re dealing with unprecedented challenges,” she said. “The hostages from the previous deal were held for a relatively short period, but this time we’re talking about people who have been in captivity for a year and three months. Their psychological and physical state is likely far more complex. It’s reasonable to assume they’ve endured greater despair, harsher conditions, and more severe impacts on their physical health.”
“We’re aware that they will likely be exposed to an overwhelming amount of information, and based on past experiences, we’ve learned that hostages often return with misinformation or under the influence of psychological warfare,” she added. “Therefore, we anticipate a process of reconnecting with reality but approach it gradually and in a way tailored to their needs.”
Hamas and Israel reached a ceasefire-hostage exchange deal that is set to take effect on Sunday, according to senior officials who helped broker the agreement. During the first phase of the deal, Hamas will over six weeks release 33 of the 98 remaining hostages who have been help captive in the Gaza Strip for 15 months. In exchange, Israel will free hundreds of Palestinians prisoners, who were largely detained for involvement in terrorist activities.
Hamas is expected to free three hostages on the first day of the ceasefire and then another four on the seventh day. The US-designated terrorist organization will then make weekly releases and by the end of the phase, all living women, children, and older people held hostage in Gaza should be freed. The deal also includes the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip.
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Rashida Tlaib Renews Calls for Arms Embargo Against Israel Even as Jewish State Advances Toward Gaza Ceasefire
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Thursday renewed calls for the implementation of an arms embargo against Israel, lambasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “genocidal” even as the Jewish state moved to agree to a ceasefire deal with Hamas to halt fighting in Gaza.
“Genocidal maniac Netanyahu and his cabinet will never stop until we have an arms embargo,” Tlaib posted on X/Twitter.
Tlaib’s comments came after Netanyahu paused the finalization of a ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas, accusing the Palestinian terrorist group of “reneging” on previously agreed-upon terms.
“Hamas is reneging on the understandings and creating a last-minute crisis that is preventing an agreement,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.”
The sticking points center on the list of Palestinian prisoners who have been detained in Israel largely for involvement in terrorist activities to be released in exchange for the hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza after being kidnapped during Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas had attempted to overturn a key clause in the agreement that grants Israel veto power over the release of high-profile inmates who are considered “symbols of terrorism,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said. Israel has also accused Hamas of “demanding to dictate the identity of these murderers,” in direct contradiction to the previously agreed-upon terms.
Later on Thursday, however, Israeli officials said the last obstacles to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal had been ironed out and Israel’s security cabinet was set to approve it on Friday. The agreement is supposed to go into effect on Sunday.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has positioned herself as a fierce and outspoken critic of Israel. Since entering office, Tlaib has repeatedly accused the Jewish state of implementing an “apartheid” regime in the West Bank and turning Gaza into an “open-air prison.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Tlaib has sharpened her condemnations of the Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, she hesitated to release an official statement acknowledging the mass slaughter, abductions, and rapes perpetrated by Hamas. Less than two weeks after the invasion, Tlaib introduced a “ceasefire” resolution between Israel and Hamas. In November 2023, the House of Representatives voted to censure Tlaib over her anti-Israel rhetoric.
The progressive firebrand has also condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing a full-scale “genocide” against the civilians of the enclave. She has also peddled the unsubstantiated claim that Israel has purposefully inflicted mass starvation against Palestinian civilians. Over the past year, Tlaib has urged the outgoing Biden administration to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Simmering with anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, she refused to endorse Kamala Harris for the US presidency.
Tlaib also slammed outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday, accusing the State Department official of lying to Congress and helping facilitate “starvation” in Gaza.
“Blinken lied to Congress and allowed starvation to be used as a weapon of war. It’s well documented. He supported war crimes and blatantly lied to Congress about it,” Tlaib wrote on X/Twitter.
On Wednesday, negotiators reached a deal to implement a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, potentially ending 15 months of war sparked by the terrorist group’s invasion of the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023. During the onslaught, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages to Gaza.
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Rome’s Chief Rabbi Criticizes Pope Francis Over Israel Remarks
Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni speaks with Pope Francis during an inter-religious prayer for peace at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, Oct. 25, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Rome’s chief Jewish rabbi on Thursday sharply criticized Pope Francis over the pontiff’s recent ramping up of criticism against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, in an unusually forceful speech during an annual Catholic-Jewish dialogue event.
Francis has unfairly focused his attention on Israel compared to other ongoing world conflicts, including those in Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Ethiopia, said Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, spiritual leader of Rome’s Jewish community since 2001.
“Selective indignation … weakens the pope’s strength,” said Di Segni.
“A pope cannot divide the world into children and stepchildren and must denounce the sufferings of all,” he said. “This is exactly what the Pope does not do.”
Francis, leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Last week, he called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “very serious and shameful.”
A complex ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas emerged on Wednesday, and is scheduled to start on Sunday.
Relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism have improved in recent decades, after centuries of animosity. The event on Thursday, held at a Catholic university, was organized to mark the 36th annual World Day of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue.
One of the organizers, Rev. Marco Gnavi, a Catholic priest, expressed surprise at Di Segni’s comments.
He said he felt “discomfort” because of the rabbi’s words. “You can’t ask us not to suffer both with you and with others,” said the priest.
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Judge Tosses Challenge to Lawsuit Alleging Mistreatment of Jewish Professor at California College
California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Photo: Edward H. Blake via Wikimedia Commons
A judge has denied a motion from the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a professor who alleges that she was disciplined and humiliated for disagreeing with students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, professor Karen Fiss engaged in a brief conversation with anti-Zionist students who, due to being told a historical fact they preferred not to hear, filed a complaint against her with CCA’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office which alleged that she had engaged in “harassing and discriminatory” behavior. Her legal counsel, provided by the nonprofit Jewish civil rights organization the Deborah Project, maintain that Fiss merely challenged the students’ anti-Zionist notions and apprised them of a 1991 incident in which Kuwait expelled nearly 300,000 Palestinians from its borders.
The college ultimately found Fiss guilty of the charges lodged against her, ruling that she had imposed her “power” on the students, who are women of color, and betrayed her cultural insensitivity by citing Kuwait’s expulsion of Palestinians in their conversation. The college further alleged that Fiss had used her “positional power as a professor to get the outcome [she] sought, which was for the students to agree with her point of view.” The college reached those findings but had previously declined to apply the same logic to an earlier complaint Fiss had filed about the Critical Ethnic Studies program’s issuing a statement — “DECOLONIZATION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY,” it said — which justified Hamas’s violence and implied that Jews are not indigenous to their own homeland.
That is because, the Deborah Project argues, CCA’s rules are in place to protect left-wing anti-Zionism and punish Jews who oppose it.
“According to CAA, academic freedom is an impenetrable bar to complaints about celebrating the slaughter and raping to death of Jews, but is made of Swiss cheese when a fully-tenured professor — Dr. Karen Fiss — explains to students some truths about the Middle East,” Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, said in a statement included in a press release on Wednesday.
With her reputation blighted by scandal and the college threatening to revoke her tenure, Fiss resolved to fight for both her right to exist as a proud Jew at work and her right to free speech. She sued CAA for discriminating against her for being Jewish, a violation of Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and breach of contract, offenses which caused her “substantial damages” and other trauma.
Deploying the weapons contained in its legal arsenal, the college attempted to muzzle Fiss even in court by filing a motion to dismiss her case entirely, and later, to strike from her own complaint the most damaging allegations regarding the university’s alleged conduct — including that the college enforces a double-standard free speech code which protects anti-Zionists “who publicly call for the murder of Jews in Israel.”
However, Judge Haywood William of the US District Court for the Northern District of California has now struck down the college’s challenge to the case, clearing the way for it to enter discovery, during which her attorneys will amass additional evidence in support of Fiss’s allegations.
In Wednesday’s press release, Fiss’s legal counsel praised the decision.
“The Deborah Project looks forward to the state of litigation that follows denials of motions to dismiss, which is called the discovery phase,” it said. “We will learn how a leading California arts college lost its way and instead of focusing on art, became most focused on ‘Critical Ethnic Studies’ — which is the largest department in this ‘art’ school. Critical Ethnic Studies, inter alia, demonizes Jews, which are cast oppressors, and the Jewish State, which is described as a colonizing, ethnic cleansing, genocidal, and illicit country.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Judge Tosses Challenge to Lawsuit Alleging Mistreatment of Jewish Professor at California College first appeared on Algemeiner.com.