Related: The Zeitoun Massacre
"Red Cross demands Gaza access, cites 'shocking' discoveries
(CNN) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross called on Israel to allow it immediate access to Gaza, saying a trip into Gaza City revealed weak children laying with their dead mothers and other "shocking" scenes.
Red Cross workers and four ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society managed to enter the Zaytun neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday, according to a written release. The crew found four children, too weak to stand, next to their dead mothers in a house containing 12 corpses, the statement says.
Other houses revealed more wounded and three more corpses, the release said. It said Israeli soldiers posted near the houses ordered the rescue team to leave the area -- an order the team refused.
"This is a shocking incident," said Pierre Wettach, the ICRC's chief official 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."
--MORE--""Red Cross slams Israel over access to wounded
The international Red Cross accuses Israeli forces today of failing to assist wounded Palestinians and of "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach a Gaza home where four small children were found alive next to their mothers' bodies.
Rescuers had been refused permission by the Israeli army to reach the site in the Zaytun neighborhood of Gaza City for days, the International Committee of the Red Cross said....
Rescuers eventually received permission to go to the site Wednesday, four days after it was hit by Israeli shells. They found 15 dead and 18 wounded in three houses, including the children who were too weak to stand. The ICRC said requests to be allowed to reach other destroyed houses in this neighborhood, reportedly containing more wounded, were refused by the Israeli army.
--MORE--""Red Cross finds starving children with 12 corpses in Gaza 'house of horrors'
(Reuters)
The International Committee of the Red Cross has accused the Israeli military of "unacceptable" conduct and breaching international humanitarian law after discovering four emaciated children living next to the corpses of their mothers and other adults in bomb-shattered houses in Gaza City.
The ICRC said that it had spent four days seeking Israeli guarantees of safe passage so that it could gain access to the houses in the badly damaged Zaytun neighbourhood of the city. It was finally allowed to send in a rescue team and four Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulances yesterday afternoon and said today that what they found was shocking.
In one house they discovered four small children, alive but too weak to stand, next to the bodies of their dead mothers. In all their were 12 dead bodies lying on mattresses.
In another house they found 15 survivors of the Israeli bombardment, several of them wounded, and in a third, three corpses. At that point they were ordered to leave by Israeli soldiers manning a post some 80 metres away, but they refused to do so.
The children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances by donkey cart because earth walls erected by the Israeli army made it impossible to bring the vehicles close enough to the houses. In all, the rescue team removed 18 wounded and 12 others who were extremely exhausted. It took away two corpses and plans to return to fetch 13 more tomorrow.
The ICRC said that it believed there were more wounded sheltering in the ruins of other houses in the same neighbourhood....--MORE--"
