The World Health Organization on Friday denied Israel’s charges it had colluded with Hamas by ignoring Israeli evidence of the group’s “military use” of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said that such accusations could endanger the UN health agency’s staff on the ground.

He was responding to claims made Thursday by Israeli ambassador Meirav Eilon Shahar at a meeting of the WHO’s board.

“WHO refutes Israel’s accusation at the executive board meeting yesterday that WHO is in ‘collusion’ with Hamas and is ‘turning a blind eye’ to the suffering of hostages being held in Gaza,” Tedros said on X.

“Such false claims are harmful and can endanger our staff who are risking their lives to serve the vulnerable.”

He insisted that “WHO is impartial and is working for the health and well-being of all people”.

Israel charges that Hamas is embedding itself in hospitals in the Gaza Strip and has been using civilians as human shields in the Palestinian territory.

In “every single hospital that the IDF searched in Gaza, it found evidence of Hamas’ military use,” Eilon Shahar said Thursday.

“These are undeniable facts that WHO choose to ignore time and time again. This is not incompetence; it is collusion.”

And following Tedros’s comment, she doubled down.

“There is clear evidence of the use of hospitals by Hamas,” Eilon Shahar wrote on X Friday evening.

There was also evidence, she said, of “the fact that hostages were taken to medical institutions after the brutal massacre of October 7th”.

“This includes first hand accounts and CCTV footage. These are not ‘false claims’. They are facts. Yet you have said nothing.”

The Israeli ambassador warned WHO that “by not condemning Hamas or taking any action to prevent them embedding themselves in hospitals and civilian areas, you are putting those who you are supposed to protect in harm’s way.” (AFP)

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