Tel Aviv accuses WHO of colluding with Hamas

ISRAEL yesterday accused the World Health Organisation (WHO) of colluding with Hamas by ignoring what it claimed was evidence of the terror group’s use of hospitals in Gaza.

Ambassador Meirav Eilon Shahar told a meeting of the WHO’S executive board that there could not be health in the enclave when Hamas “embeds itself in hospitals and uses human shields”.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, made an emotional plea at the same meeting in Geneva, Switzerland for an immediate ceasefire, warning of “hellish” conditions in the territory.

In “every single hospital that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] searched in Gaza, it found evidence of Hamas’s military use,” Ms Shahar said.

“These are undeniable facts that WHO chooses to ignore time and time again. This is not incompetence; it is collusion.”

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of having tunnels under hospitals and using the medical facilities as command centres, which the terror group denies.

Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, said last month that its staff had “not seen anything of this on the ground”. He added that the UN health agency was “not in a position to assert how any hospital is being used”.

Mr Peeperkorn said: “The role of WHO is to monitor, analyse and report... We are not [an] investigating organisation.”

But Mr Eilon Shaher alleged the UN health agency “knew hostages were held in hospitals and that terrorists operated within”.

She said: “Even when presented with concrete evidence of what was happening below ground and above ground ... WHO chooses to turn a blind eye, jeopardising those they are meant to protect.”

Her accusation came as Dr Tedros, who lived through war in Ethiopia as a child, warned continued fighting in Gaza would only bring “more war” and “more hatred”.

The WHO director-general said: “I’m a true believer because of my own experience that war doesn’t bring solution, except more war, more hatred, more agony, more destruction.

“So let’s choose peace and resolve this issue politically.

“I think all of you have said the twostate solution and so on, and hope this war will end and move into a true solution,” he added.

Dr Tedros described the current situation in Gaza as “beyond words”.