Israel on Friday defended its raid on a north Gaza hospital final week whereas the U.N. human rights chief known as the justification unsubstantiated and the World Well being Group urged Israel to launch the hospital’s director from detention.
Israel’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, Daniel Meron, posted on social media a letter he despatched on Friday to the WHO and Volker Turk, the U.N. human rights official. It stated the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital per week in the past was “triggered by irrefutable proof” that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants have been utilizing the hospital.
He stated Israeli forces had taken “extraordinary measures to guard civilian life whereas performing on credible intelligence.”
Turk advised the U.N. Safety Council on Friday that Israel didn’t “substantiate many of those claims, which are sometimes obscure and broad. In some circumstances, they seem like contradicted by publicly obtainable data.”
“I’m calling for impartial, thorough and clear investigations into all Israeli assaults on hospitals, healthcare infrastructure and medical personnel, in addition to the alleged misuse of such amenities,” he advised the 15-member physique.
Israel’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Miller stated greater than “240 terrorists have been apprehended, together with 15 who participated within the Oct. 7 bloodbath” in southern Israel in 2023, which triggered the warfare within the Gaza Strip. The hospital’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, was additionally detained within the raid.
“We suspect him of being a Hamas operative as a whole bunch of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists have been hiding contained in the Kamal Adwan Hospital beneath his administration. He’s at present being investigated by Israeli safety forces,” Miller stated.
The WHO is deeply involved about Abu Safiya, stated WHO consultant Richard Peeperkorn, including: “We have now misplaced contact with him since and name for his speedy launch.”
The US is gathering details about Abu Safiya, Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Dorothy Shea advised the Safety Council.
Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour broke down in tears as he recalled phrases that a health care provider from Médecins sans Frontières, Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, wrote at Gaza’s Al Awda Hospital earlier than he was killed in a strike in November 2023.
Mansour stated that Nujaila had written on a hospital whiteboard used for planning surgical procedures: “Whoever stays till the top, will inform the story. We did what we may. Bear in mind us.”
