ICRC slams 'contempt' for humanity in Fallujah

"We are deeply concerned by the devastating impact that the fighting in Iraq is having on the people of that country," said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations.

"As hostilities continue in Fallujah and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity: the obligation to protect human life and dignity," he added.

"For the parties to this conflict, complying with international humanitarian law is an obligation, not an option," Kraehenbuehl said in an unusually tough statement by the relief agency.

The senior Red Cross official said the killing this week of a wounded insurgent by a US soldier and the death of aid worker Margaret Hassan, who was killed by her kidnappers, had "shocked the world".

"Like any other armed conflict, this one is subject to limits, and they must be respected at all times," he said.

Those limits included an "absolute prohibition" of the killing of people not taking part in fighting, and forbid torture, degrading treatment, and hostage taking.

They also imposed protection for the wounded as well as for civilians, the Red Cross agency underlined.

"The taking of hostages, whether Iraqi or foreign, is forbidden in all circumstances," Kraehenbuehl said.

The ICRC, which is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, the main international laws governing conduct in warfare, said anyone responsible for violating those rules "must be held accountable for their actions".

As aid agencies were prevented from entering Fallujah, Kraeh-enbuehl appealed "for everything possible to be done to allow such organisations to come to the aid of the thousands of Iraqis who are suffering."

The ICRC pulled its international staff out of most of Iraq and pared down operations there after a car bomb exploded outside its headquarters in Baghdad in October 2003, killing 12 people.

Most aid agencies have withdrawn over the last few months amid kidnappings and attacks targeting international and Iraqi aid workers, or have relied upon local Iraqi staff to try to keep up deliveries.