JERUSALEM/BERLIN/PARIS: Israel has asked foreign countries to send hospital ships to help treat wounded Palestinians who are allowed to leave the war-ravaged Gaza Strip for neighboring Egypt, the Israeli ambassador to Germany said on Thursday.
France said last week it was sending the naval vessel Tonnerre to the eastern Mediterranean on what it described as a mission to support Gaza hospitals. Egypt this week began admitting limited numbers of wounded across its Gaza border.
In an Israeli public broadcast interview on Kan radio, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, was asked whether Israel had asked France and other European countries to send hospital ships for receiving Gazan wounded at Al-Arish, an Egyptian port close to the Palestinian enclave.
Prosor described this scenario as correct, saying he had submitted such a request to Berlin.
“I don’t know yet if it is happening,” said Prosor, a former director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. “We asked for this. I suppose it is being discussed. There is a leaning, here in Europe, to help in humanitarian matters in any way possible.”
A spokesperson for the German defense ministry said Berlin was in close contact with its Israeli partners and each request would be thoroughly looked into. He declined, however, to comment on the specific request for a hospital ship.
“I ask for your understanding that I cannot comment on the content and details of confidential conversations,” he said. With that, he appeared to refer to a meeting between German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Prosor on Tuesday.
A French military source said the Tonnerre, which has about 60 beds and two operating blocs, could only be used temporarily and as back-up for a larger hospital on land.
“The medical support capacities of the ship make it possible to provide a rapid response but only temporary and only complementary to heavier hospital installations capable of treating significant flows of injured people effectively and over time.”
The source said that at this stage the Tonnerre remained off the coast of Cyprus and no decision had been made on where it could dock and how it would be used. The immediate priority for France was to provide humanitarian aid through air lifts via Egypt.
Speaking to France Info radio, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Paris had decided to send a second helicopter carrier, the Dixmude, to the region and it was being transformed into a hospital vessel.
When asked how practical it would be to bring people from land to sea, Lecornu said things were still in the planning stages and discussions were ongoing with Egyptian and Israeli authorities.
“The idea is to tell all the actors in this conflict that we cannot leave civilian populations exposed to danger and, above all, without a health care solution on a humanitarian level,” Lecornu said.
He said he hoped that France’s decision to send ships would encourage others to follow their lead.
A French diplomatic source said it was unlikely that the Tonnerre would be used as an offshore field hospital for Palestinians or foreigners from Gaza.
The source said the idea was to see how the ship, along with other vessels in the region, could eventually be used to help establish a field hospital in southern Gaza, although all that would depend on the situation on the ground and discussions with regional authorities.
Prosor said Israel also asked Italy to send a hospital ship but has yet to hear back.
Israeli diplomat sees possible foreign hospital ships for Gaza wounded
https://arab.news/r5hx9
Israeli diplomat sees possible foreign hospital ships for Gaza wounded
- France said last week it was sending the naval vessel Tonnerre to the eastern Mediterranean on what it described as a mission to support Gaza hospitals
- A spokesperson for the German defense ministry said Berlin was in close contact with its Israeli partners and each request would be thoroughly looked into
Philippines says China fired flares toward its patrol plane in the disputed South China Sea
- “The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources aircraft recorded video footage of three flares fired from the reef toward the aircraft during its lawful overflight,” said the Philippine coast guard
- The Philippine patrol plane spotted a Chinese hospital ship, two Chinese coast guard ships and 29 suspected militia ships anchored in the waters off Subi
MANILA: Chinese forces fired three flares from an island toward a Philippine plane undertaking a routine patrol Saturday in the disputed South China Sea, but the incident did not cause any problem and the aircraft proceeded with its surveillance mission, the Philippine coast guard said.
It was not immediately clear how far the flares that Filipino officials said were fired from the Chinese-occupied Subi Reef were from the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft of the Philippine fisheries bureau.
Chinese officials did not immediately comment on the incident, Beijing has claimed virtually the entire South China Sea, a key global trade route, and has vowed to staunchly defend its sovereignty. Chinese forces has fired flares from its occupied islands and from its aircraft as a warning for foreign planes to move away from what it calls its airspace in the disputed waters.
“The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources aircraft recorded video footage of three flares fired from the reef toward the aircraft during its lawful overflight,” said the Philippine coast guard, which carried out Saturday’s surveillance flight with the fisheries agency.
“These flights aim to monitor the marine environment, assess the status of fisheries resources and ensure the safety and welfare of Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea,” the coast guard said, using the Philippine name for the stretch of the South China Sea that Manila claims.
The Philippine patrol plane spotted a Chinese hospital ship, two Chinese coast guard ships and 29 suspected militia ships anchored in the waters off Subi, the Philippine coast guard said.
Subi is one of seven disputed and mostly submerged reefs which China turned more than a decade ago into what are now island bases in the Spratlys, the most hotly disputed region of the South China Sea. The artificial islands are protected by a missile system and three of them have military-grade runways, according to US and Philippine security officials.
Aside from Subi, the Philippine patrol plane flew near six other disputed islands, reefs and atolls, including Sabina, an uninhabited disputed shoal, where it monitored a Chinese navy ship. “This vessel repeatedly issued radio challenges against the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources aircraft while it was flying well within Philippine sovereign rights,” the Philippine coast guard said.
“All safe and mission accomplished,” Jay Tarriela of the Philippine coast guard said of Saturday’s surveillance flight.
The United States has no territorial claims in the sea passage but has patrolled the waters for decades and repeatedly warned it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have also been involved in the long-seething disputes in the resource-rich waters.
