Reuters – ICRC says Israel broke international law in Gaza

by Jon Thompson on January 8, 2009

GENEVA, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Relief workers found four starving children sitting next to their dead mothers and other corpses in a house in a part of Gaza City bombed by Israeli forces, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday.

The ICRC accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to the hit area and demanded it grant safe access for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded. “This is a shocking incident,” said Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief 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 Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded,” he said. In unusually strong terms, the neutral agency said it believed Israel had breached international humanitarian law in the incident.

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