CAIRO, November 6. /TASS/. Hamas calls on the United Nations chief to set up an international committee to visit hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Osama Hamdan, a Hamas politburo member, said on Monday.

He denied Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman Daniel Hagari’s statement that Palestinian groups are using hospitals as their command centers. "They are looking for pretexts to justify the bombardments of hospitals, the destruction of the medical sector and to exert pressure on our people to driven them out of their soil," he said.

"We, the Hamas movement, are calling of the UN secretary general to set up an international committee to visit hospitals to make sure that these allegations are false and that the occupational authorities are killing patients and the wounded," he said.

Israeli forces attacked the area outside of Al Shifa Hospital on November 3. The strikes hit a convoy of ambulances that were about to leave the hospital to transport the wounded to the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian border. Other strikes hit an area near the entrance to the hospital, damaging several other ambulances. The IDF said that it targeted a Hamas command center located on Al Shifa’s territory.

Tensions flared up in the Middle East after Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip attacked Israeli territory, killing many Israelis living in the settlements near the border and abducting more than 200 people, including children, women and the elderly. Hamas views its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ steps against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.