By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 8 January 2009
Red Cross officials said rescue crews had received specific reports of casualties in the houses and had been trying since Saturday to send ambulances to the area, located in Zaytoun, a neighborhood south of Gaza City. They said the Israeli military did not grant permission until Wednesday afternoon.
In an unusual public statement issued by its Geneva headquarters, the Red Cross called the episode “unacceptable” and said the Israeli military had “failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.”
When rescue workers from the Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent arrived at the site, they found 12 corpses lying on mattresses in one home, along with four young children lying next to their dead mothers, the Red Cross said. The children were too weak to stand and were rushed to a hospital, the agency said.
Mr. Obama was so “concerned” by this latest outrage that he leaked the appointment of the unacceptable Dennis Ross as his Middle East envoy.
Both links via As’ad AbuKhalil’s indispensable coverage and analysis of the ongoing atrocities.
Updated @1056 on 8/1/2009:
Jim Lobe has more on Ross and a position that seems to have been created especially for him. He “will not reprise his former role as special Arab-Israeli peace envoy, a post that will be held by someone else”, but will act as “a sort of Middle East ‘czar'” overseeing all matters including US policy on Iran.