Red Cross says humanitarian convoy came under fire in Gaza City

The International Committee of the Red Cross said a humanitarian convoy came under fire in Gaza City on Tuesday but was able to deliver medical supplies to Al Shifa hospital.

Two trucks were damaged and a driver was lightly wounded, the organisation said.

It said the convoy included five trucks and two ICRC vehicles and was carrying “lifesaving medical supplies to health facilities including to Al Quds hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, when it was hit by fire”.

The group did not identify the source of the fire.

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After the incident, the convoy altered its route and reached Al Shifa hospital where it delivered the medical supplies, the ICRC said. The convoy then accompanied six ambulances with critically wounded patients to the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt, the group said.

“These are not the conditions under which humanitarian personnel can work,” said William Schomburg, head of the ICRC sub-delegation in Gaza. “Ensuring that vital aid can reach medical facilities is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law.”

The ICRC, a neutral organisation based in Geneva, has escorted patients and transported freed hostages out of Gaza.

The incident happened as Palestinians stuck inside the besieged enclave continued to face daily suffering of a scale, intensity and repetitiveness that have pushed some into fury and despair.

“I swear we are waiting for death. It will be better than living. We are waiting for death at each moment. It’s a suspended death,” said Abu Jihad, a middle-aged resident of Khan Younis in the south of the tiny, densely populated territory.

He was standing in a street close to a house flattened by an air strike that shook the neighbourhood awake in the middle of the night. “We are not living. We need a solution. Either kill us all or let us live,” he said, raging at Israel and at the wider world which he accused of being silent and impotent.

Israel has told residents of the northern part of the enclave, where its forces have encircled Gaza City, to move to the south for their own safety, but has been bombarding the south too, though less intensively than the north.

In Khan Younis and Rafah, two separate strikes on homes killed 23 people overnight, health officials said on Tuesday.

At the site of the Khan Younis strike, a man carried the lifeless body of a tiny child, dressed in what looked like pink pyjamas, from the flattened ruin of a home.

A young girl had survived but was trapped by a slab of concrete that had fallen on her legs. A group of men were using their bare hands to try to free her as an anxious crowd stood outside, calling out encouragements to the rescuers.

Ahmed Ayesh, a resident injured in the strike, walked out of the bomb site with a bloodied face and blood spattered over his T-shirt and one arm. He was visibly enraged as he spoke to reporters.

“This is the bravery of the so-called Israel. They show their might and power against civilians. Babies inside! Kids inside!” he said, jabbing his finger towards the ruin and raising his voice.

Israel says it targets only militants and accuses Hamas of using human shields and concealing weapons and operations posts in built-up residential districts. Hamas denies this. – Reuters