Red Cross says Israel barred rescuers from shelled Gaza homes
The relief agency says the Israeli army refused to grant its team access for four days. The team later found 15 bodies and 18 wounded people in the Gaza City neighborhood.
Reporting from Los Angeles and Jerusalem — The Red Cross today accused Israel of preventing rescue workers from reaching Gaza City homes where the relief agency said it found 15 bodies and 18 wounded, including children, needing treatment after Israel shelled the area.
In a blistering report, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the Israeli army refused to grant rescuers access to the site in the Zeitun neighborhood for four days, a delay the agency said it considers unacceptable.
"This is a shocking incident," Pierre Wettach, regional head of the Red Cross, said in a statement.
"The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded," he stated.
The Israeli military did not comment directly on the Red Cross report, but it issued a statement accusing the militant group Hamas of deliberately using Palestinians as "human shields." It said the army "works in close cooperation with international aid organizations during the fighting so that civilians can be provided with assistance."
The Israeli military "in no way intentionally targets civilians and has demonstrated its willingness to abort operations to save civilian lives and to risk injury in order to assist innocent civilians," the statement said. It promised that "any serious allegation" would be investigated "within the constraints of the current military operation."
The Red Cross said it had requested access to the Zeitun neighborhood since Saturday, but the Israeli forces did not grant permission until Wednesday afternoon, four days after homes were hit by Israeli shells.
"The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses," the statement said. "They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."
The Red Cross said the rescue team then went to other houses in the neighborhood where it found 15 survivors, including several wounded. Three other corpses were recovered.
The Israeli army had built earth walls, making it impossible to bring ambulances into the neighborhood, the report said. "Therefore, the children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances on a donkey cart," it said.
Israeli soldiers also ordered the rescue team to leave the area but the team refused to depart, the report said.
The Red Cross said it "believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable."
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations office in Geneva, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, denied his country was failing in its humanitarian obligations.
"Once the military activity was over, then it was possible for humanitarian teams to evacuate the wounded," he told the Associated Press.
boudreaux@latimes.com
michael.muskal@latimes.com
