Hamas delayed the evacuation of wounded Palestinian civilians from Gaza by placing its own fighters on border departure lists.
A senior official in Joe Biden’s administration said Hamas had repeatedly provided Israel, the United States and Egypt with lists of Palestinians who were wounded and should be allowed to depart – only for it to later emerge during security checks that many of those included were Hamas fighters.
“About a third of the wounded Palestinians on the first lists were Hamas fighters,” reported The New York Times.
The inclusion of the fighters was not acceptable, said the official, resulting in delays to the evacuation which only started this earlier week – more than three weeks into the war.
None of the 76 wounded Palestinians who were ultimately evacuated in ambulances out of Gaza on Wednesday were members of the terror group.
Rather, they were ordinary Gazans requiring “advanced surgeries that can’t be done here because of the lack of capabilities, especially women and children”, said Nahed Abu Taeema, director of the Nasser Hospital in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is also trying to smuggle equipment into Gaza within aid shipments in a bid to bolster its war effort, say officials.
On Saturday, The Times of Israel reported that Israeli inspectors had uncovered several “oxygen concentrators” for use in Hamas’s tunnel network hidden in food supplies on an aid truck earlier this week.
“These weren’t for use in the hospitals, but below them. That’s why they were smuggled among boxes of cookies,” said one of two senior Israeli officials who briefed the newspaper on the incident.
They added that the entire truck in which the oxygen concentrators were found was barred from entering Gaza.
Hamas’s actions are not helping its negotiating position.
Despite rising anger from Washington’s Arab allies, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, continued to rule out calling for a ceasefire.
“It is our view now that a ceasefire would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct 7,” Mr Blinken told a news conference after the talks with the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers in Amman.
The furthest the US will go is to support “humanitarian pauses”, said Mr Blinken.
For his part, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has said there will be no pause in the fighting until Hamas agrees to release all 242 hostages it is holding in Gaza.
Nevertheless, hundreds more dual nationals and Gazans requiring urgent medical were expected to leave Gaza on Saturday for a fourth day of evacuations.
Nearly 90 people with British citizenship were expected to be among those crossing into Egypt from Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on the territory continued to intensify.
Palestinians said an Israeli airstrike hit a United Nations-run school in northern Gaza which was being used as a shelter as Mr Blinken met Arab leaders.
At least 15 people died and dozens more were wounded, said Gaza’s health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas.
Footage of the aftermath showed broken furniture and other belongings lying on the ground, patches of blood and people crying.
“I was standing here when three bombings happened, I carried a body and another decapitated body with my own hands,” a young boy said in a video obtained by Reuters.
Last month, Israel ordered all civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, and head to the south of the enclave.
The Israel Defense Forces said it enabled Palestinians to travel to the south on the Salah a-Din road during a three-hour window on Saturday afternoon.
“If you care about yourself and your loved ones, heed our instruction to head south,” it said in a social media post in Arabic.
Several residents were too afraid to use the road due to Israeli forces and many posted warnings on social media that Israeli tanks were stationed on it.
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Hamas 'puts fighters on evacuation lists to stop wounded Palestinians leaving' - The Telegraph
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