ICRC finds four small children too weak to stand up, lying next to their dead mothers in Gaza area.
JERUSALEM - The Red Cross on Thursday accused Israel of failing to help wounded people in one Gaza area where it found four small children too weak to stand up, lying next to their dead mothers.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement that its staff and Palestinian Red Crescent Society workers on Wednesday found 12 dead and at least 19 survivors, including several wounded and four weakened children, in houses hit during shelling in Zeitun, some 80 metres from Israeli military positions.
Soldiers ordered the rescue workers to leave but they refused, it added.
"The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded," the unusually direct statement said, adding that the delay in allowing access was "unacceptable."
It said the request for safe passage for ambulances to reach Zeitun, which it had made on January 3, was only granted on Wednesday.
Painting a grisly picture of the scene its rescuers witnessed when they finally reached the neighbourhood it said the team "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own.
"One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."
In one house, the rescuers found 15 survivors, several of them wounded.
In another house, they found three corpses. "Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 metres away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do," the ICRC said.
"This is a shocking incident," said Pierre Wettach, who heads the ICRC's delegation for Israel and the 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 Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."
The Israeli military did not address the specific claim.
"Any serious allegations made against the IDF (Israeli military) conduct will need to be investigated properly, once such a complaint is received formally, within the constraints of the current military operation," it said.
Humanitarian agencies and human rights groups have repeatedly urged Israel to allow safe passage to ambulances and allow civilians to seek refuge from the fighting.
"There is no place safe from the fighting for civilians in Gaza at this time," said Fred Abrahams, of Human Rights Watch, urging Israel and Egypt to open their borders with Gaza to those "people fleeing for their lives."
The World Health Organisation says that a total of 131 patients have been evacuated throught the Rafah crossing with Egypt since Israel launched its Operation Cast Lead against Hamas on December 27.
Palestinian medics say that more than 700 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive, including 220 children, with a further 3,100 people wounded.
