BEIRUT — Since 2024, the Israeli army has abducted dozens of Lebanese citizens, including during commando raids.

While Lebanon’s Nawaf Salam cabinet is stunningly inert, families remain agonizingly ignorant of their beloved ones’ health, location, or fate!

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been systematically blocked from access to detainees. It is unable to deliver letters, messages, or reassurances from mothers, wives, children, or relatives in a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

Among the abducted are civilians and prisoners of war alike; all are entitled to protection, dignity, and immediate release once hostilities cease.

The catalogue of Lebanon’s missing reads like a chilling nightmare: Ali Nasser Younes and his uncle Fouad Habib Qataya, abducted en route to their workshop in Wadi Al-Hujayr; Hussein Amin Karki shot in the back as his mother was mercilessly murdered before his eyes; Hassan Ahmad Hamoud taken at dawn while his home in Taybeh was set ablaze; students, fishermen, municipal employees, and paramedics, including Hassan Youssef Qashqoush and Alaa Fares.

The conditions these Lebanese endure are abominable. Neutral observers or the ICRC are banned; lawyers and relatives cut off entirely.

Survivors recount relentless physical and psychological torment: savage beatings, humiliating strip searches, starvation, denial of water and medical care, isolation, threats, and collective punishment targeting prisoners’ families.

International law is painfully clear, yet shamelessly flouted; for instance:

- The Third Geneva Convention and Additional Protocols criminalize torture, guarantee medical care, and demand humane treatment comparable to captor soldiers. Prisoners must communicate with families via the ICRC, practice their religion, and be released promptly after hostilities end.

- The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits kidnapping civilians, hostage-taking, and arbitrary detention.

- Article 8 of the Rome Statute classifies such acts as war crimes, and Rule 96 of the ICRC bans hostage-taking in all conflicts.

No security apparatus tracks detainees, no ministry documents their names, and no crisis unit advocates for their release. Lebanon’s paralysis gives Israel unfettered license to abduct, abuse, and isolate its citizens.

Nawaf Salam’s cabinet, ever eager to appear “responsible,” prefers condemnations and empty statements over decisive action. This is not oversight — it is deliberate negligence masquerading as governance!

Every hour of inaction intensely deepens national humiliation, ensuring Lebanon’s children remain pawns on a cruel geopolitical chessboard.

History is unforgiving. UN resolutions and diplomatic appeals have never freed Lebanese prisoners. Liberation has been achieved only through armed resistance, as the enemy bows only to strength.

Each day of Salam’s inaction is a morally grotesque betrayal. Every kidnapped Lebanese citizen is a living indictment of the state’s chronic incompetence.

Families scavenge scraps of information from released Palestinian prisoners or social media fragments. Mothers discovering their sons are alive in Ofer, Ramleh or Nafha have no government to turn to. They are only given hollow promises.

Salam’s cabinet must choose: reclaim responsibility, or continue to be a passive bystander to its citizens’ suffering.

Until the state asserts itself — legally, diplomatically, and through relentless media pressure — the kidnapped will remain hostages of both the enemy and a government that shamefully abandons them at the hour of greatest vulnerability.

Available remedies abound, yet remain brazenly ignored: formally request ICRC access; meticulously document each kidnapping; submit complaints to the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council; launch global awareness campaigns; file cases at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court; convene emergency parliamentary and cabinet sessions to formulate a decisive national strategy.

The enemy respects nothing but raw, uncompromising power; not petitions, resolutions, or political correctness. The liberation of Lebanese prisoners demands audacious courage, unflinching clarity, and the uncompromising assertion of national will. Anything less is utter betrayal!