Three days and nights of despair: PHR-Israel team worked to facilitate the evacuation
of six residents of Khuza'a.
27/07/2014
Three days and nights of despair: for 3 days the 'Physicans for Human Rights-Israel' team worked to facilitate the the evacuation of six residents of Khuza'a who were trapped in the ruins of their bombed homes, under continuous fire. Throughout this time they suffered serious shortages of basic necessities such as water and food. All our efforts to coordinate the entry of rescue teams were met by a wall of silence.
On Thursday (July 24) at 12:00 BK, an 80-year old man, resident in Khuza'a in the Gaza Strip contacted us. He told us that he was under bombardment in the neighborhood, together with another five elderly people, all aged between 70 and 80, and one young man. He said that the elderly cannot get out of Khuza'a by themselves due to their difficulties in walking and health problems. The young man is able to leave but has stayed to take care of the elderly.
All our attempts to coordinate the evacuation of the group to safety failed due to lack of response from the army. Despite the fact that the Gaza DCO should be the responsible body working with the Red Cross and rescue organizations in Gaza to coordinate the evacuation of wounded and trapped, many of the necessary evacuations only occurred after long days of fighting. In many cases the condition of the wounded, denied access to medical help, worsened and in some cases civilians even lost their lives while waiting for help to come. For those who were not injured but were under siege, in addition to the risk of injury from fire, they faced a life-threatening situation simply because they lacked water, food and basics - they could not go out to fetch these without facing a real risk to their lives and safety.
On Saturday July 26 at 7:00 in the morning contact with BK and the other elderly waiting to be evacuated with him was lost. Throughout the days while they waited for evacuation the army continued with fire that prevented ambulances and rescue teams of the Red Crescent reaching the wounded and besieged. We do not know what has happened.
http://www.phr.org.il/default.asp?PageID=190&ItemID=1984
= new reply since forum marked as read
This is the fault of Hamas, no one else is responsible!
