The United Nations condemned the ambulance bombing that killed 15 people in Gaza on Friday. The attack was confirmed by the Israeli army, which said it had used the vehicle to target Hamas members, something the Palestinian Islamist organization denied.
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“I am horrified,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement, adding: “The images of bodies scattered on the street outside the hospital are heartbreaking.”
“The convoy consisted of five ambulances,” including one from the Hamas Ministry of Health and one from the Red Crescent, the Red Crescent said in a statement, saying the bombing occurred at a distance of two meters from the entrance to al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza.
A second ambulance was attacked “about a kilometer away from the hospital” and casualties were found, the humanitarian organization added.
Israeli aircraft “encountered an ambulance, identified by the armed forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell, near their position in the combat area,” an Israeli army statement said.
Israel’s claims “about the presence of militants in the attacked ambulances are false, and these are new lies in addition to the constant lies.” […] be used to justify their crimes,” Hamas denied in a statement posted on Telegram.
According to the Hamas Health Ministry, the attack left 15 dead and 60 injured.
According to its spokesman Ashraf al-Qidreh, the ambulance was part of a convoy transporting “several injured people on their way to hospital in Egypt.”
The Red Crescent confirmed the number of casualties, adding that a doctor was slightly injured in one leg by shrapnel, before recalling that “deliberately attacking medical teams constitutes a serious violation of the Geneva Convention.”
After that strike, which took place in front of Al-Shifa Hospital, where thousands of displaced people sought refuge, an AFP correspondent saw several bodies and injured people next to a damaged ambulance.
“Horrified”
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “deeply shocked” and stated on X that “patients, caregivers, facilities and ambulances must be protected at all times.”
The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lynn Hastings, said she was “concerned” about X because the attack targeted “patients who should be evacuated for security reasons.”
Early Saturday, Hamas also claimed that 20 people were killed and dozens more injured in an attack on a school that had been converted into a makeshift camp for displaced people in the al-Saftaoui area of northern Gaza.
Since Wednesday, dozens of wounded Palestinians have been evacuated to Egypt from the Gaza Strip, which has been relentlessly bombarded by Israel since the Hamas attack on its territory on October 7.
According to local authorities, more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since the war began on October 7 with the Hamas attack on Israeli soil.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, incessant Israeli bombings in Gaza have killed more than 9,200 people, including 3,826 children.
On October 27, the Israeli army accused Hamas of “waging war from hospitals” in the Gaza Strip, which the Islamist movement categorically denied.