Hamas has slammed a statement by the US which claimed the Palestinian group “uses ambulances and more broadly human shields for terrorism”, Al Jazeera reports.

It said the remarks by Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, express the Trump administration’s “understanding of the crime of executing Red Crescent and Civil Defence personnel in Rafah”.

“[The remarks] are a hideous example of immoral solidarity with the Nazis of our time in their brutal war against defenceless civilians and humanitarian organisations,” the group said.

“Hughes’s accusations that Hamas is using ambulances are pure lies, devoid of any evidence, propagated by the US administration, alongside the government of war criminal Netanyahu, to justify its heinous and documented crime against paramedics and rescue workers.”