UN reports Gaza medical evacuation convoy blocked by Israeli troops

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs accused Israeli forces of blocking a medical evacuation of Gaza hospital patients for several hours on Sunday, preventing them from reaching another medical facility in the Rafah region on the border with Egypt.

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said on Tuesday that a medical convoy was transporting 24 patients, including a pregnant woman, mother and newborn baby, from Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

“Despite prior coordination of all staff and vehicles with the Israeli side, after the WHO-led convoy left the hospital, the Israeli army blocked it for several hours,” Larke said. Severely ill patients remain in the hospital.”

“The Israeli military forced the patients and staff out of the ambulance and stripped all the paramedics naked,” he said, noting that three Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics were detained while other members of the convoy remained in place Stayed for more than seven hours.

He added that a paramedic had been released.

“We call for the immediate release of the other two, as well as all other detained health workers,” Larke said.

“We have not received any information or any communication from the Israeli authorities as to why this movement, which was clearly notified – and by the way they acknowledged that we had sent them the notification – was still detained for seven hours,” he said.

Israeli authorities also have not explained why “the health workers were taken away, forced to take off their clothes and three were detained – two of whom have still not been released,” Larke said.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on the incident, saying it was verifying the details described by OCHA.

World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said some people in the convoy were unable to walk, “but others had to get out of the ambulance.”

“You can imagine being forced to stand outside waiting for seven hours in a life-threatening situation when you’ve been moved, unable to move or unable to move, that’s pretty unimaginable,” he said.

Amal Hospital has been the center of Khan Younis’ military operations for more than a month. The WHO reported that from January 22 to February 22, there were 40 attacks on the hospital, killing at least 25 people and paralyzing the hospital.

Currently, 215 people remain in the hospital, including 31 remaining patients, health workers, paramedics, ambulance drivers, 8 doctors and 10 nurses.

“The 24 evacuated patients were transported from Amal to a hospital in Rafah where they could receive treatment,” Larke said. “Several, if not all, required some kind of surgical intervention, which was It certainly can’t happen at Al Amal Hospital.”

Lindmeier noted that Sunday was not an isolated incident. He said eight convoys were attacked and systematically denied access to people in need.

“Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated or detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian infrastructure has been hit,” he said.

“Just before Sunday’s incident, two family members of Doctors Without Borders [Doctors Without Borders] Their staff and families were killed in an unprovoked attack by Israeli forces on a deconfliction compound where they were sleeping,” he said.

More than four months of fierce fighting in Gaza have caused casualties and property damage. After Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel on October 7, Israel began its military offensive. The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that at least 29,782 Palestinians were killed, 70% of whom were women and children, and 70,043 were injured. It makes no distinction between civilians and combatants.

According to the Israeli military, 238 soldiers have been killed and 1,400 injured since the ground operation in Gaza began. Additionally, Israeli authorities reported that Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreigners in Israel and took 240 hostages during the incursion.

Israeli authorities estimate that 134 Israelis and foreigners remain imprisoned in Gaza, including the dead whose bodies remain in Gaza.

“We support a humanitarian ceasefire, we support and demand the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

“This is what we would like to see happen. This is not something that is on the table,” Guterres said, noting that current talks are aimed at gradually releasing the hostages and interrupting the fighting to some extent.

“This is not our goal, nor is it the ultimate goal, and we fully support any effort to free the hostages and reduce the suffering of the Palestinian people,” he said.