UN-Truth

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hardly ever goes public with any direct criticism of any state — particularly one which is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions.

But, late on Wednesday, the ICRC pulled out its ultimate weapon — a public statement saying that it had asked for access to evacuate the wounded from the Zeitoun neighborhood in the eastern part of Gaza City since 3 January, but was only allowed in during the IDF’s “humanitarian respite” on Wednesday afternoon 7 January, and it said what it found was “shocking”.

So, the ICRC went public and on the record, with this: “The ICRC 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”. This statement can be viewed in full on the ICRC website here .

Israel is a signatory [as of 1951] to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the “Protection of Victims of Armed Conflict”.

It was first reported by the New York Times from Paris, here , which also reported a response from the IDF: the Israeli military did not comment directly, NYTimes correspondent Alan Cowell wrote, but in a statement the IDF did say “that ‘any serious allegation’ would ‘need to be investigated properly, once such a complaint is received formally, within the constraints of the current military operation’.”

UPDATE: The IDF spokesperson for the Foreign Press, Major Avital Liebowitz, has just told Al-Jazeera that the IDF has not received any formal complaint from the ICRC…

Here is the ICRC statement, in full: “Geneva/Jerusalem/Tel Aviv (ICRC) – On the afternoon of 7 January, four Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed to obtain access for the first time to several houses in the Zaytun neighbourhood of Gaza City that had been affected by Israeli shelling. The ICRC had requested safe passage for ambulances to access this neighbourhood since 3 January but it only received permission to do so from the Israel Defense Forces during the afternoon of 7 January. The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. 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. In another house, the ICRC/PRCS rescue team found 15 other survivors of this attack including several wounded. In yet another house, they found an additional three corpses. Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 meters away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do. There were several other positions of the Israel Defense Forces nearby as well as two tanks. ‘This is a shocking incident’, said Pierre Wettach, the ICRC’s head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. ‘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’. Large earth walls erected by the Israeli army had made it impossible to bring ambulances into the neighbourhood. Therefore, the children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances on a donkey cart. In total, the ICRC/PRCS rescue team evacuated 18 wounded and 12 others who were extremely exhausted. Two corpses were also evacuated. The ICRC/PRCS will recover the remaining corpses on Thursday. The ICRC was informed that there are more wounded sheltering in other destroyed houses in this neighbourhood. It demands that the Israeli military grant it and PRCS ambulances safe passage and access immediately to search for any other wounded. Until now, the ICRC has still not received confirmation from the Israeli authorities that this will be allowed. The ICRC 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“.

There will be a strong reaction — and the ICRC may fall silent once again, or issue qualiflying remarks, as it has in the past. But, it did go public now.

Meanwhile, Haaretz newspaper’s Amira Hass updated yesterday (7 January) her report of earlier this week — on a similar situation in the same area — and wrote that: “A Gaza family has been waiting 86 hours to be evacuated from their home that was hit by an Israel Defense Forces shell on Saturday night. As of Wednesday morning, all attempts to evacuate the A’aiedy family to hospital for treatment have been for naught. An IDF shell struck the family home situated in an agricultural expanse east of Gaza City. A section of the house was destroyed in the attack. Two women, both of them 80 years of age, and three of their grandchildren were wounded. Thus far they have treated their injuries with water and salt, though their wounds have become infected, according to a relative, Hussein Al A’aiedy … The family is holed up in a room in the front section of the house. Late Sunday, a Palestinian ambulance arrived at a cluster of homes nearby in order to evacuate other wounded to hospital. A’aiedy said the driver of the ambulance wanted to extricate his family from the home but the army would not permit him to do so. The army coordinator told Physicians for Human Rights that the exchange of gunfire is precluding medical services from evacuating the wounded family members. Al A’aidey confirmed this, adding that tank shells are being lobbed in the direction of his home. He told Physicians for Human Rights that he would like to transport the children to a more exposed area so that they would be sheltered from IDF fire. His only means of communication with the outside world is through a mobile phone whose battery he recharges with the aid of a generator he took from a motorcycle. Three hours after the Israel Defense Forces began their ground operation in the Gaza Strip, at about 10:30 P.M. Saturday night, a shell or missile hit the house owned by Hussein al A’aiedy and his brothers. Twenty-one people live in the isolated house, located in an agricultural area east of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood. Five of them were wounded in the strike: Two women in their eighties (his mother and aunt), his 14-year-old son, his 13-year-old niece and his 10-year-old nephew … [And] the wounded were still bleeding in a shed in the courtyard of the house. There was no electricity, no heat, no water. Their relatives were with them, but every time they tried to leave the courtyard to fetch water, the army shot at them…” Amira Hass’ report can be read in full here.

Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Committee of the Red Cross - ICRC, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians