Dozens dead
22 dead after attack near ICRC office in Gaza
More than 20 people have been killed in a grenade attack near the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Gaza Strip, according to the organization. On Friday afternoon, "heavy-caliber" shells struck "in the immediate vicinity of the office and homes of the International Committee of the Red Cross", the ICRC announced on its online service X. No further details of where the attacks came from were given for the time being.
"This incident triggered a mass influx of victims to the nearby Red Cross field hospital," added the organization, which is based in the Swiss city of Geneva. There, 22 dead and 45 injured were registered. There are reports of further victims.
Hundreds of displaced people are living in tents in the vicinity of the ICRC office. Attacks in "dangerous proximity to humanitarian facilities endanger the lives of civilians and Red Cross staff", the organization continued. The locations are known to the parties to the conflict and are also "clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem".
Red Cross calls for the protection of civilians
"This serious security incident is one of several in recent days," it continued. "Stray bullets have hit ICRC sites before." The organization has repeatedly called on Israel and the radical Islamic Hamas to protect civilians in view of the war in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip reported 25 dead and 50 injured in the attack. The Israeli army had attacked "tents of displaced persons in the area of Al-Mawasi". The ICRC office is located in this village near Rafah.
The field hospital, surrounded by hundreds of refugee tents, was opened in mid-May. Up to 200 people can be treated there every day and receive urgently needed emergency treatment. Important support for the hospital came from Austria: the Austrian Red Cross (ÖRK) provided the water treatment plant, which can be used to produce clean drinking water.
Israeli army: "Incident is being investigated"
An Israeli army spokesperson said that there were "no indications that the army carried out an attack in the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi". The incident is being investigated.
According to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, chaos and lawlessness in the embattled Gaza Strip are preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid in the sealed-off coastal area. There is "total lawlessness", Guterres lamented in New York on Friday. There are "extreme difficulties in the distribution" of aid supplies in Gaza and trucks are being looted.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB. Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.