International Desk

Israel on Thursday accused the World Health Organization of collusion with Hamas by ignoring Israeli evidence of the "terrorist use" of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli ambassador Meirav Eilon Shahar told the WHO's executive board that there could not be health care in the Palestinian territory when Hamas "embeds itself in hospitals and uses human shields".

In "every single hospital that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) searched in Gaza, it found evidence of Hamas' military use," she said.

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

On X, formerly Twitter, the ambassador insisted there was evidence of Hamas's "terrorist use" of hospitals.

War erupted October 7 when Hamas and others from Gaza launched unprecedented attacks on Israel which claimed about 1,140 lives, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Hamas also seized 250 hostages, and Israel says around 132 remain in Gaza. That number includes at least 28 dead hostages, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel, in response, launched a relentless military offensive that the Palestinian territory's health ministry says has killed at least 25,700 people -- about 70 percent of them women and children.

- 'Murdered hostages in a tunnel' -

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of having tunnels under hospitals and using the medical facilities as command centres, a charge denied by the Islamist group.

WHO has previously said it could not confirm the allegations.

Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, told reporters on December 21 that "we on our missions have not seen anything of this on the ground", adding that WHO was "not in a position to assert how any hospital is being used".

"The role of WHO is to monitor, analyse and report... We are not (an) investigating organisation."

But Eilon Shahar alleged the UN health agency "knew hostages were held in hospitals and that terrorists operated within".

"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."

The ambassador addressed a WHO executve board session on the organisation's work in health emergencies.

Listing hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the ambassador said Hamas forces "managed operations" from the Indonesian Hospital, "and the IDF found five murdered hostages in a tunnel dug underneath".

She said hostages were brought through the front of the Al-Rantisi children's hospital on October 7 and then held in the basement.

At Kamal Adwan Hospital, "80 terrorists surrendered themselves to IDF soldiers, and weapons were found hidden inside incubators", she said.

Hamas fired rocket-propelled grenades at Israeli troops from the Al-Quds Hospital, she said, "and large quantities of weaponry and ammunition were found within".

The WHO executive board meets twice a year. It is comprised of 34 countries elected for three-year terms.