Red Cross refused to give medicine to Gaza hostages, Netanyahu tells families

An International Committee of the Red Cross representative refused to bring a box of life-saving medicine to Israelis taken hostage in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in a Monday address to the Knesset plenum.

"I met with the Red Cross; I handed them a box of medicine for some of the hostages shown here. Some of them really need it...I told a representative to take this box to Rafah; she said no. It was a difficult conversation," he told a special Knesset session attended by families of hostages, who were heard shouting "Now!" at the prime minister as he explained the return of all hostages would take time.

"We are sparing no effort, both seen and hidden, to bring all of the hostages home," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu: IDF fighters in Gaza told me to keep going

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Gaza Strip on Monday, he told fellow Likud members in a faction meeting at the Knesset.

"I just returned from Gaza; I met a division of reservists on the field," he told his faction. "All of them asked me for one thing only: We must not stop; we must keep going until the end," he said, in reference to the IDF's war on Hamas in Gaza.

"The papers and television studios said we are stopping; They also said we would stop after the first hostage deal - and we kept going," Netanyahu continued. "We do not stop; we keep fighting, and we will be deepening the fighting over the coming days; this will be a long battle, and it is not close to being over."