The brother of an Israeli man held hostage in the Gaza Strip by Hamas has criticised the United Nations Security Council for inaction and urged it to “send a resonating message that terror will never prevail”, Reuters reports.

Michael Levy’s brother Or was taken hostage and Or’s wife was killed when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023. Levy was the first person from a hostage family to brief the 15-member Security Council, which has met dozens of times on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza over the past 14 months.

“Your silence is deafening, your inaction is suffocating. For everyday this council fails to act, the message to the world is clear — that some lives are worth saving and others are not,” he said. “I refuse to accept a world where my brother’s life can be used as a bargaining chip and be forgotten.”