The head of the UN agency has claimed that Israel Defense Forces opened fire on a medical convoy carrying employees of the World Health Organization into Gaza.
The WHO team and its partners from the Palestine Red Crescent Society were shot at while on a "high-risk" operation to deliver medical supplies to Al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza, according to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The WHO said that throughout the convoy's passage through Gaza, which included ambulances, IDF troops handled PRCS health personnel "in a degrading and humiliating manner" at many military checkpoints and during detentions.
The WHO-led convoy was reportedly subjected to an initial inspection at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint on its way to the hospital, where IDF soldiers removed ambulance staff from their vehicles for identification. Two PRCS employees were allegedly detained for more than an hour.
“WHO staff saw one of them being forced to kneel at gunpoint and then taken out of sight, where he was reportedly harassed, beaten, stripped and searched,” the WHO stated on Tuesday.
After the mission passed through the checkpoint and entered Gaza City, “the aid truck carrying the medical supplies and an ambulance were hit by bullets,” Tedros wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
On its return to the south of Gaza, after picking up patients from Al-Ahli, the mission was stopped again at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, with critical patients allegedly searched by armed Israeli soldiers.
As a result of the delays, one of the patients died from his untreated wounds, Tedros said.
The WHO team and its partners from the Palestine Red Crescent Society were shot at while on a "high-risk" operation to deliver medical supplies to Al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza, according to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The WHO said that throughout the convoy's passage through Gaza, which included ambulances, IDF troops handled PRCS health personnel "in a degrading and humiliating manner" at many military checkpoints and during detentions.
The WHO-led convoy was reportedly subjected to an initial inspection at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint on its way to the hospital, where IDF soldiers removed ambulance staff from their vehicles for identification. Two PRCS employees were allegedly detained for more than an hour.
“WHO staff saw one of them being forced to kneel at gunpoint and then taken out of sight, where he was reportedly harassed, beaten, stripped and searched,” the WHO stated on Tuesday.
After the mission passed through the checkpoint and entered Gaza City, “the aid truck carrying the medical supplies and an ambulance were hit by bullets,” Tedros wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
We received greater detail on Saturday’s high-risk @WHO-led mission in #Gaza to Al-Ahli Hospital. We are deeply concerned about prolonged checks and detention of health workers that put lives of already fragile patients at risk.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 12, 2023
The mission was stopped twice at the Wadi Gaza… https://t.co/DG4uxYSNBw
On its return to the south of Gaza, after picking up patients from Al-Ahli, the mission was stopped again at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, with critical patients allegedly searched by armed Israeli soldiers.
As a result of the delays, one of the patients died from his untreated wounds, Tedros said.
