The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not had the opportunity for more than 590 days to visit hostages in Gaza and provide them with medical care. However, Communications Coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross Jacob Kurtzer tells Fox News Digital that the organization has been ready to provide hostages with medical assistance ‘from day one’ — despite not being granted access to them.

‘It’s no secret that the ICRC has not been able to visit hostages to carry out the work that’s mandated — to carry out our humanitarian work, to visit, to bring medicine,’ Kurtzer told Fox News Digital. ‘I can assure you it’s not for lack of trying, and I can assure you that every single day, our colleagues here, our colleagues at headquarters, and our colleagues at other delegations are working to try to find a way to get access.’

Since its establishment over 160 years ago, the ICRC has prided itself on serving as a neutral body focused on delivering aid and medical care. However, since the war in Gaza began, the ICRC has faced criticism from some for not pushing to visit the hostages and for its volunteers taking part in Hamas-led hostage release ceremonies.

When asked by Fox News Digital about the ceremonies, Kurtzer said that ICRC workers in Gaza have ‘very little ability to dictate the terms and the protocols of the release operations.’ However, he added that the organization believes these hostage release operations ‘must be done in dignity and should be done privately.’

‘So, certainly there were things that we saw that we didn’t like. We conveyed our views about those directly through what we call our bilateral and confidential dialogue,’ Kurtzer said. 

Despite facing mounting pressure and obstacles, the ICRC seems to be sticking to its mission. Kurtzer said that the organization is ready to ‘jump at’ any opportunity to reach the hostages and provide them with assistance. However, Hamas has still not given them that opportunity.

Kurtzer also addressed the ICRC’s position on access to Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

When discussing the lack of opportunities to visit the hostages who have been held in Gaza since Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 massacre, Kurtzer also mentioned that the ICRC would like to have the opportunity to visit Palestinians being held by Israel. Fox News Digital then pressed Kurtzer on whether the ICRC saw the situation of hostages in Gaza and Palestinians being held in Israel as equivalent. Kurtzer later clarified the comments in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘The ICRC recognizes the distinction between hostages and detainees enshrined in international humanitarian law (IHL). Hostages are captured or held with the threat of being harmed or killed to pressure another party into doing something, as a condition for the hostage’s release or safety. Hostage-taking is a violation of IHL,’ he said. ‘We provide assistance and work to alleviate suffering on all sides of a conflict. Under IHL, the ICRC must be notified of and granted access to Palestinians in Israeli custody, and we continue to seek this access.’

Beyond the hostages, ICRC is tasked with providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, something Kurtzer said is urgently needed. He called the situation in the Strip ‘catastrophic.’

Kurtzer recalled the relief that the recent ceasefire provided those on the ground in Gaza. 

‘It provided hope. It provided hope for families on all sides. It provided hope to families of the hostages. It provided hope for people living inside Gaza,’ Kurtzer said. However, the resumption of military action has ‘contributed to a sense of despair,’ he said.

Since Kurtzer spoke with Fox News Digital, Israel has altered its position on humanitarian access, now allowing some aid trucks into Gaza. However, critics argue that the scale of assistance remains insufficient.

U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy announced on Tuesday that his country was suspending trade talks with Israel over the handling of the war in Gaza. French President Emmanuel Macron also condemned Israel in a post on X. Additionally, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said the aid being allowed in was a ‘drop in the ocean.’

‘We really believe that the path forward is one where humanitarian assistance is allowed in and we urgently and we appeal over and over again for the parties themselves to find a better path forward because what we’re seeing now is just really very, very devastating,’ Kurtzer told Fox News Digital.

President Donald Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill’ passed the House of Representatives early on Thursday morning with few Republican defections.

It is a significant victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who navigated deep inter-party friction within the House GOP Conference to deliver a product from which few Republican lawmakers ultimately defected.

The bill is a sweeping multi-trillion-dollar piece of legislation that advances Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. It’s sought to make a dent in the federal government’s spending trajectory by cutting roughly $1.5 trillion in government spending elsewhere. The U.S. government is over $36 trillion in debt and has spent $1.05 trillion more than it’s collected in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the Treasury Department.

The bill passed 215 to 214 with just two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, voting against it. All Democrats voted against the bill as well, and House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., voted ‘present.’

Republicans spent more than 48 hours continuously working on the bill from the time it came before the House Rules Committee – the final gatekeeper before a House-wide vote – at 1 a.m. on Wednesday to when it passed the chamber just after 7 a.m. on Thursday.

‘It quite literally is morning again in America,’ Johnson said. ‘What we’re achieving today is nothing short of historic.’

All the while, Democratic lawmakers attempted a variety of delay tactics, from introducing amendments targeting key Trump policies to forcing several procedural votes on the House floor ahead of debate on the legislation.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., notably spoke on the House floor for over 30 minutes just before the vote in a last-ditch effort to stretch out the seemingly endless day of debate and votes.

‘This bill represents a failed promise. Last year, Donald Trump and House Republicans spent all of their time to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America,’ Jeffries said on the House floor. ‘We’re now more than 120 days past the inauguration. Costs aren’t going down, they’re going up.’ 

Tensions flared at multiple points as visibly weary lawmakers continued to fight their ideological battle into the early morning. 

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who was presiding over the House at the time, warned Jeffries multiple times to address the chair in his remarks rather than directly attacking Republicans sitting across the chamber.

‘Every time I’m interrupted, that’s going to add another 15 minutes to my remarks,’ Jeffries said as Democrats sitting around him sounded off in support.

The bill seeks to permanently extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) while also implementing newer Trump campaign promises like eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay, and giving senior citizens a higher tax deduction for a period of four years.

The legislation also included new funding for the border and defense, including more money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and $25 billion to kick-start construction of a ‘Golden Dome’ defense system over the U.S.

Cuts include new work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, as well as putting more of the cost-sharing burden on states that took advantage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s expanded Medicaid enrollment by giving illegal immigrants access to the healthcare program.

The legislation would also roll back a host of green energy tax credits awarded in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – which Trump vowed to repeal in its entirety on the campaign trail. 

It also would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by roughly 20% by introducing some cost-sharing burdens on the states and increasing the amount of able-bodied Americans facing work requirements to be eligible for food stamps.

All House Democrats rejected the bill, accusing Republicans of disproportionately favoring the wealthy at the expense of critical programs for working Americans. Republicans, on the other hand, have contended that they are preserving tax cuts that prevent a 22% tax increase on Americans next year if TCJA was allowed to expire, as well as streamlining programs like Medicaid and SNAP for vulnerable Americans who need it most.

Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, chair of the House’s 189 member-strong Republican Study Committee, told Fox News Digital, ‘This transformational legislation permanently extends President Trump’s historic tax cuts, provides unprecedented funding for border security, and obliterates the last four years of catastrophic Democratic policies.’

And while most GOP lawmakers united on the final bill, divisions appeared to persist until the final moments. Conservatives had pushed for more aggressive targeting of Medicaid waste and Biden green energy subsidies, while blue state Republicans pushed for tax relief for Americans in high-cost-of-living areas. 

To resolve outstanding differences, House Republican leaders released a list of eleventh-hour changes to President Donald Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ hours before their full chamber is expected to consider the legislation.

New provisions in the bill include a ban on federal funding for transgender adults’ medical care, and $12 billion in new funding to reimburse states for money they spent countering the former Biden administration’s border policies. 

A key request from fiscal conservatives was also honored, with House GOP leaders apparently agreeing to speed up the implementation of work requirements for certain able-bodied recipients of Medicaid.

The bill initially had Medicaid work requirements going into effect in 2029.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, one of the fiscal hawks leading GOP opposition to the bill, told Fox News Digital just after midnight Thursday that he was not sure if the legislation went far enough – but suggested the White House could persuade him with other avenues for change.

‘There are things in the executive space, executive actions that we think could take care of … some of our concerns on the Medicaid expansion,’ Roy said.

The legislative update also included a victory for blue state Republicans who have been pushing for a higher state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap – the current $10,000 cap would be quadrupled to roughly $40,000, but only for people making less than $500,000 per year. The $10,000 cap was first instituted in TCJA. 

‘This is what real leadership looks like. President Trump and House Republicans made a promise to the American people to secure our border, protect seniors, cut taxes on tips and overtime, and shut off the spigot of benefits for illegal immigrants,’ first-term Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. 

Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital, ‘More than 77 million Americans made clear at the polls that they want President Trump’s America First agenda codified into law, and our ‘One, Big, Beautiful Bill’ delivers on this promise.’

But while House GOP leaders are enjoying their hard-fought victory now, the battle over Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ is not over.

Senate Republicans have already signaled they expect to make changes to the bill when it reaches the upper chamber, despite House GOP leaders publicly urging them to amend as little as possible.

There is a significant number of senators who have expressed wariness at the level of Medicaid and SNAP cuts sought by the House. An increase to the SALT deduction cap could also be met with skepticism in the Senate, where no Republican represents a blue state – unlike the House, where New York and California districts are critical to the majority.

The House and Senate must pass identical bills before sending them to Trump’s desk for a signature. GOP leaders have signaled they hope to do that by the Fourth of July.

A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from firing two Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Wednesday.

Trump fired all three Democratic members of the five-person board in February, resulting in two of them filing a lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton found that allowing unilateral firings would prevent the board from carrying out its purpose.

Walton wrote that allowing at-will removals would make the board ‘beholden to the very authority it is supposed to oversee on behalf of Congress and the American people.’

The oversight board was initially created by Congress to ensure that federal counterterrorism policies were in line with privacy and civil liberties law.

‘To hold otherwise would be to bless the President’s obvious attempt to exercise power beyond that granted to him by the Constitution and shield the Executive Branch’s counterterrorism actions from independent oversight, public scrutiny, and bipartisan congressional insight regarding those actions,’ Walton wrote.

Trump’s firings left just one Republican on the board. The third Democratic member had just two days left in her term when she was removed, and she did not sue the administration.

The two plaintiffs, Travis LeBlanc and Edward Felten, argued in their lawsuit that members of the board cannot be fired without cause. Meanwhile, lawyers for Trump’s administration argued that members of other congressionally created boards do have explicit job protections, and it would therefore be wrong for Walton to create such protections where they are absent.

‘The Constitution gives President Trump the power to remove personnel who exercise his executive authority,’ White House spokesman Harrison Fields told the Associated Press. ‘The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.’

The plaintiffs also argued that their firings left just one member on the board, a Republican, and that falls short of the quorum required for the board to function.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.