Foreign Minister Bringing Families of Kidnapped Israelis to UN

Jerusalem, 23 October, 2023 (TPS) -- Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will speak about the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 and Israel’s response at the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York on Tuesday.

The minister will bring with him relatives of Israelis the terrorist group abducted and took to the Gaza Strip, the Foreign Ministry said.

On Monday, the IDF said it had contacted the families of 222 hostages held by Hamas.

Cohen will also participate in events in New York with the families of those kidnapped.

He is also expected to meet with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and other foreign ministers, but those arrangements are not yet finalized.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to hold its monthly discussion on the Palestinian issue on Tuesday.

On Friday, Hamas released two hostages, Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie, of Chicago, for what the terrorist group described as “humanitarian reasons.”

The pair were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Oct. 7 invasion of the western Negev.

Also last week, Hamas released a video showing Israeli captive Miya Shem.

Shem was kidnapped while taking part in a music festival in the desert near Kibbutz Re’im, where Hamas gunmen murdered at least 260 festival-goers.

Families of the captives have expressed anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval of humanitarian deliveries of water, food and medicine to Gaza through Egypt without receiving any concessions in return.

Also among the murdered and missing are citizens from 41 countries.