A/HRC/12/48 page 118 Crescent … and the use of hospitals and medical infrastructure as headquarters, situation rooms, command centres and hiding places.323 467. As described in detail in chapter IX, the Mission investigated the attacks against al-Quds hospital in Tal el-Hawa, one of the hospitals which were allegedly used for military purposes by Palestinian armed groups. This hospital was directly hit by white phosphorous shells and at least one high explosive shell on 15 January 2009. The Mission conducted extensive interviews with al-Quds hospital staff and others who were in the area at the time of the attack and concluded that it was unlikely that there was any armed presence in any of the hospital buildings at that time. The Mission also investigated the attacks against al-Wafa Hospital in eastern Gaza City. As in the case of al-Quds hospital, after hearing credible testimony from doctors at that hospital, the Mission excluded the possibility that there were combatants inside the hospital at the time of the attack. However, the Mission did not make any findings with respect to the possible presence of Palestinian combatants in the surroundings of the hospital. 468. In its report, the Government of Israel states that Hamas used two units and a ground-floor wing of al-Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, as a military base.324 As its sources, it cites an interview with a “Hamas activist” captured by Israel and an Italian newspaper article,325 which in turn bases this assertion on a single anonymous source. The Mission did not investigate the case of al-Shifa hospital and is not in a position to make any finding with regard to these allegations. 469. On the basis of the investigations it has conducted, the Mission did not find any evidence to support the allegations made by the Israeli Government. 2. Ambulances 470. The Government of Israel alleges that “Hamas made particular use of ambulances, which frequently served as an escape route out of a heated battle with IDF forces.”326 471. The Mission investigated cases in which ambulances were denied access to wounded Palestinians. Three cases in particular are described in chapter XI: the attempts of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) to evacuate the wounded from the al-Samouni neighbourhood south of Gaza City after the attack on the house of Ateya al-Samouni and after the shelling of the house of Wa’el al-Samouni; the attempt of an ambulance driver to rescue the daughters of Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo in Izbat Abd Rabbo; and the attempt of an ambulance driver to evacuate Rouhiyah al-Najjar after she had been hit by an Israeli sniper. In all three cases the Mission found, on the facts it gathered, that the Israeli armed forces must have known that there were no combatants among the people to be rescued or in the immediate vicinity. 323 “The operation in Gaza…”, para. 171. Ibid., para. 172. “Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, located his Southern Command centre in one of the Shifa Hospital units, while the senior leaders of Hamas stationed themselves in another unit.” 324 325 Corriere della Serra, “Così i ragazzini di Hamas ci hanno utilizzato come bersagli”, 21 January 2009. 326 “The operation in Gaza…”, para. 176.