Four small starving children too weak to stand were found next to the bodies of their dead mothers by ambulancemen who had been trying to reach their Gaza neighbourhood for four days after it came under Israeli attack, the Red Cross said yesterday.
In what the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called a "shocking incident", another man, also too weak to stand, was found in the same bombed house, along with at least 12 corpses on mattresses.
Accusing Israel of violating international law by imposing "unacceptable" delays on rescuers trying to reach the scene, the ICRC said that when ambulance crews were finally allowed to access the area in Gaza City's Zeitoun district during a bombardment pause on Wednesday, they found 15 other survivors, including several wounded in another house. In a third house, they found three more corpses.
The ICRC said that because the military had erected large earth walls around the site, the crews were forced to use donkey carts to convey the children and the wounded to ambulances. Pierre Wettach, the ICRC's head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: "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."
The organisation accused the Israeli military of "violating its obligations under international law to care for and evacuate the wounded". The criticism was unusual as the ICRC generally refrains from publicly attacking the conduct of warring parties in conflict zones.
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