Message #122575

[Bianca]

'Access denied'



The International Committee of the Red Cross accused Israel of failing in its international obligations after its staff were met with "shocking" scenes.

 
One medical team found 12 bodies in a shelled house, and alongside them four very young children, too weak to stand, waiting by their dead mothers, the ICRC said.


Aid workers had been denied access to the site for days, it added.

"This is a shocking incident," Pierre Wettach, ICRC head for Israel and the Palestinian territories 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 Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

Correspondents say the criticism is unusually strong, coming from an agency considered to be neutral.

The Israeli army told Reuters news agency that any serious allegations would be properly investigated once a formal complaint was received.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International accused both sides of using civilians as human shields.

"Israeli soldiers have entered and taken up positions in a number of Palestinian homes, forcing families to stay in a ground floor room while they use the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position," it said in a statement.

While Palestinian families reported that in some cases Palestinian gunmen agreed to leave areas near civilian homes without firing at Israeli forces, the statement went on, "in other cases they have refused the residents' requests and only left after firing".






Nursing home



At least three Katyusha rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into the northern Israeli area of Nahariya early on Thursday.