French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday condemned Hamas for airing a video of Franco-Israeli Mia Shem, who was taken hostage by the Islamist militant group earlier this month. He has called for her unconditional release and says talks are underway to release other hostages.
"It is an ignominy to take innocent people hostage and put them on show in this odious way," the Elysee presidential palace quoted Macron as saying.
France was "working with its partners to free French hostages held by Hamas", it added.
"I want to be very cautious here... so as not to endanger the intense talks we are currently conducting," Macron told reporters in the Albanian capital Tirana. "But they are progressing and we are following these talks hour by hour."
French Foreign Minster Catherine Colonna held talks on Sunday with the families of people who had been killed or abducted, including Shem's.
On Monday evening, Hamas aired a video on its official Telegram channel of "one of the prisoners in Gaza", showing a young woman, identified as Mia Shem, speaking Hebrew.
199 hostages
In the video, Shem says she is being held in Gaza, is being well treated and appeals for her release.
The video shows her being treated for an arm injury.
The caption to the video said she had been abducted on 7 October, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, triggering a war that has killed thousands of people in both Israel and the blockaded Gaza Strip, which Israel is bombing in retaliation.
The Israeli army has confirmed at least 199 hostages were taken to Gaza. Hamas had claimed around 250 captives are being held.
Meanwhile, Mia's mother Keren Schem on Tuesday called on world leaders to free her daughter.
"I ask world leaders that my daughter be returned to us in the state that she is today, as well as the other hostages," Shem told a press conference in Tel Aviv.
Shem said her daughter was at a rave party in the desert near the border, when she was abducted.
"Now she is in Gaza. She is not the only one. There are many adults, children, babies and Holocaust survivors. It is a crime against humanity. All together we need to stop this terror".
"I beg the world to return my baby to me".
Israeli airstrikes continue
Israeli airstrikes continue
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have carried out localised raids across the border during which they have located the bodies of some of those abducted, with the latest such operation taking place on Tuesday, an army spokesman said.
Israel has also begun evacuating thousands of residents from 28 locations in the north, along the border between the Lebanon and Israel.
The international community fears the opening of a second front in the conflict, with Lebanon 's Iran-backed Hezbollah group joining its ally Hamas in the fight against Israel.
Elsewhere, at least 49 Palestinians were killed in an overnight Israeli strike that hit homes in Khan Younis and Rafah, Gaza's interior ministry said on Tuesday.
Thousands of people trying to escape Gaza are gathered in Rafah, which contains the territory’s only border crossing to Egypt, as international mediators press for a deal to allow aid in and refugees with foreign passports out.
(with AFP)
