The walls of the Red Cross compound were rattled after an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip on Friday. A senior Red Cross official recounted the horror and the scene after the strike. 

Three explosions shook the foundations of the Red Cross compound after which came the “flood of wounded people” seeking help, William Schomburg, the local chief for the ICRC told reporters in Geneva via video link.

“There were piles of dead bodies, blood everywhere,” he added. 

Twenty-two people were killed in shelling that caused minor damage to the exterior walls of the compound where the Red Cross has been operating. The compound is situated just south of a humanitarian zone designated by the Israeli army in Palestinian territory.

“All of our buildings are very well known to all parties to the conflict,” Schomburg highlighted.

Schomburg refused to speculate on the source of the shelling and said, “But of course, this incident is one of several near misses that we have had… and we as the ICRC cannot operate like this.”

‘Blood everywhere’

Many of the wounded were taken by ambulance to a nearby Red Cross field hospital for operations, but some did not survive. While no Red Cross employees were killed, Schomburg reported that two children of staff members required treatment for injuries sustained in the blasts.

This is not the first time Red Cross facilities have been damaged during the more than eight months of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants who control the Gaza Strip.

Schomburg noted that recovering from the trauma of Friday’s strike would not be easy.

“Around the compound on the street, there were pools of blood, there were bodies strewn across the ground,” he recalled. 

Body parts were found scattered in different areas, including within the compound. “Frankly, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The scale of the suffering in such a short period of time was really very shocking for the team,” Schomburg said.

‘Overwhelming’ fear

The shelling occurred as Israel intensified its strikes in the Gaza Strip following the October 7 attack by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. The militants also took hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, although the army reports that 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,551 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday. An Israel Defense Forces statement on Saturday indicated that an initial inquiry found “there was no direct attack carried out by the IDF against a Red Cross facility,” but the incident remains under review and “findings will be presented to our international partners.”

The Red Cross office is surrounded by a camp where several families of ICRC staff members live in tents. Schomburg described it as a “miracle” that none were severely injured, but noted “an overwhelming sense of fear amongst people that were clearly panicked and very desperate with nowhere to go.”

Thousands of displaced Palestinians have been sheltering in tents in the coastal Al-Mawasi area since the fighting began, leading to the recognition of the humanitarian zone by Israeli authorities. Schomburg emphasized that the Red Cross office in Rafah, like all their buildings and facilities, is clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem and known by all parties. He remarked, “How to explain the strikes we experienced yesterday? I think you will have to ask the parties involved in this conflict, and not us.”

(With Agency Inputs)