Despite prior registration and approval, Israeli soldiers are said to have stopped an ambulance convoy with numerous patients. “Not an isolated case,” is the accusation.
The UN emergency agency OCHA has accused the Israeli military of holding up an ambulance convoy carrying 24 evacuated patients for seven hours. The military forced all patients who could walk and the paramedics out of the ambulances, reported OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke in Geneva. Among them were a pregnant woman and a mother with a newborn baby.
The incident occurred on Sunday in front of the Al Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis. The convoy was led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and was properly registered and approved. The Israeli army said it was reviewing the report.
The medics had to undress when the military stopped the convoy, Laerke reported. Three were taken away. One of them has since been released. The patients could ultimately have been distributed to other facilities. However, 31 seriously ill people could no longer have been transported. Like around 180 people who had sought refuge in the hospital, they and 45 members of the nursing staff stayed behind. The hospital was virtually destroyed by around 40 attacks within a month.
“This is not an isolated case,” said Laerke. “Aid convoys are repeatedly shot at and systematically denied access to people in need. Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated and detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian facilities have been hit,” he continued.
Source: Stern
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