Release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas a ‘major key’ says UK parliament member

Following British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s use of the words "unconditional" and "immediately" concerning the release of Israeli hostages in an official statement on Oct. 7, a committed Christian member of the UK parliament emphasized to lawmakers that the immediate release of the hostages should come first.

On Monday, the former leader of the Liberal Democrat Party in the United Kingdom, Tim Farron, said that despite the unspeakable Hamas atrocities, the hostage families had shown a “desire for peace and reconciliation, which [he] found utterly breathtaking and humbling.”

Farron continued: “So does the Prime Minister agree that the release then, of the hostages, is not just the right thing in and of itself? Of course it is, but it is also a major key to ending this conflict, because any ceasefire without the hostages released, is de facto not a ceasefire.”

Thank you @timfarron for wearing the yellow ribbon in Parliament and demanding the unconditional release of the hostages. My husband’s cousin Tsachi should be at home with his family. The world needs to shout louder. To act.

Free the hostages.pic.twitter.com/OkHyKKJKqO

— Heidi Bachram 🎗️ (@HeidiBachram) October 14, 2024

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, Israel’s coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing, Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch, met on Monday with the UK’s Gaza Hostages director, Sir Charles Hay.

According to an Israeli government press release, they “discussed the situation of the hostages and efforts for their release, international efforts to assist in their return and Israel-UK cooperation on the issue.”

Mandy Damari, the mother of the one British-Israeli hostage remaining in Gaza, recently made an impassioned plea to the British government to do more to secure Emily’s release. 

Emily Damari, who turned 28 in captivity, is one of 13 young women still being held by Hamas terrorists and operatives after more than a year. Two others, Eden Yerushalmi (24) and Carmel Gat (40) were murdered alongside four male hostages as IDF special forces were close to rescuing them in August.

Noa Argamani (26) was freed in a daring IDF operation in June.

In addition to deep concerns for the physical and emotional wellbeing of the hostages, there is growing fear regarding sexual abuse and possible pregnancies, as reports indicate that Hamas and other Gazan terrorists have perpetrating sex-related crimes since Oct. 7, with released female hostages speaking out about the abuse they endured and witnessed.

The UK Defence Journal reported the fact that the Royal Air Force is supporting Israel with hostage rescue operations.

“The unarmed UK surveillance aircraft are employed solely to support hostage rescue. Only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant Israeli authorities responsible for hostage rescue,” replied Ministry of Defence official Luke Pollard, by way of a Written Parliamentary Answer. 

The question about intelligence sharing was submitted by the anti-Israel Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn, who previously referred to both Hamas and Hezbollah as his ‘friends.’

The new Labour government in London is operating a careful balancing act, between the recently elected Independent MPs representing much of the UK’s Muslim vote, and the moral obligation to support the Jewish community in the face of increasingly hostile pro-Palestinian protests calling for a complete arms embargo on Israel.

On Monday, the British government announced new sanctions against “Iranian military figures and organizations,” following the country’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Oct. 1, which “threatened to escalate the conflict in the Middle East.”

However, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has still not been proscribed as a terrorist organization in the UK, despite calls in April for this action, following Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone strike against Israel.

Britain’s new defense secretary, John Healey, however, is an advocate for the ban. And last week, the director general of the UK’s MI5 security service, Ken McCallum, said that the threat posed by Iran, to the UK, was currently “unprecedented.”

In addition to mentioning Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, McCallum said that the Islamic State was renewing efforts to export terrorism, and that, since January 2022, MI5 has “responded to twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.”