Israeli soldiers open fire on, humiliate staff delivering medical aid in Gaza: WHO

LONDON: Israel Defense Forces opened fire on a medical convoy transporting World Health Organization staff through Gaza on Saturday, according to the head of the UN agency.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the WHO team and their partners from the Palestine Red Crescent Society were on a “high-risk” mission to deliver medical supplies to Al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza when they were hit by bullets.

The WHO reported that IDF soldiers treated PRCS health workers in “a degrading and humiliating manner” at multiple military checkpoints and during detentions as the convoy, which included ambulances, traveled through Gaza.

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.

A PRCS health worker, previously detained, was taken for a second interrogation, the WHO reported. He was later released that night following UN intervention but was forced to walk back without clothes or shoes, and with his hands tied behind his back.

“We are deeply concerned about the prolonged checks and detention of health workers that put the lives of already fragile patients at risk,” Tedros said.

“The difficulties faced by this mission illustrate the shrinking space for humanitarian actors to provide aid within Gaza, despite the desperate need for access to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation,” the WHO separately stated.

The incident comes amid growing concerns over human rights violations by Israeli military troops, who faced fierce backlash last week for stripping, blindfolding Palestinian men, and parading them in the streets.

The operation to Al-Ahli Hospital delivered enough trauma and surgical supplies to treat 1,500 patients, and also transferred 19 critical patients to a medical complex in the Strip’s south.