Israeli forces have attacked Palestinian hospitals in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip three times in just two weeks, injuring people and causing panic, according to a United Nations aid agency.
In its bi-weekly report titled “Protection of Civilians,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the separate attacks, carried out between Dec. 22, 2020, and Jan. 4, also damaged hospitals.
The report, published Saturday by Palestine’s official Wafa news agency, said the first of the three attacks took place on Dec. 26, when Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
The attacks wounded three Palestinians, including a six-year-old girl. Civilian structures were also hit. The airstrike also damaged a water carrier, which caused water supply problems for some 250,000 people in the blockaded strip, a densely populated enclave of about two million people.
The second attack took place Dec. 27 in Ramallah, when Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinians, wounding two, including a pregnant woman, with rubber bullets as they stood in the courtyard of the Palestine Medical Complex. It further said that an ambulance was damaged in the attack.
The third attack took place on January 4 in the town of Tulkarm, when Israeli troops stormed a hospital and fired stun grenades inside the building, causing panic among patients.
According to the report, the patients included those who were under treatment for COVID-19 disease.
In addition, the OCHA report states that another 89 Palestinians, including 16 children, were injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers throughout the West Bank during this period.
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have increased following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.