Fifteen Red Crescent, Palestinian Civil Defence and United Nations (UN) emergency and rescue workers were pulled from a mass grave in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the 31st of March, according to Reuters and the British BBC.
The UN humanitarian agency said that five ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle were hit “one after the other” on the 23rd of March and that 15 bodies, including those of medics still in uniform, were collected and buried in a mass grave.
MEDICS DIED WHILE GOING TO THE AID OF THE WOUNDED IN RAFAH, ON THE DAY THAT ISRAEL RESUMED ITS ALL-OUT OFFENSIVE AGAINST HAMAS.
In a post on X, UN Relief Chief Tom Fletcher said the bodies were buried near “crashed and well-marked vehicles”, adding: “They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives. We demand answers and justice.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), told X that the remains had been “dumped in shallow graves, a profound violation of human dignity”.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said that one staff member of the nine-strong Red Crescent team that disappeared on the 23rd of March has still not been found.
According to the IFRC, this was the deadliest attack on Red Cross or Red Crescent staff since 2017.
Lazarini said the total number of aid workers killed in Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas stands at 408.
THE ISRAELI MILITARY SAID ON MONDAY THAT AN INVESTIGATION FOUND THAT SOLDIERS FIRED ON A GROUP OF SUSPICIOUS VEHICLES ON THE 23RD OF MARCH,
including ambulances and fire trucks, as they approached a position without coordination, lights or emergency signals.
Later, the armed forces said they helped evacuate bodies from the area, which they described as an active combat zone. However, they did not give an answer as to why the bodies were buried under the sand or why the vehicles were crushed.
It stated that several Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were killed in the strike.
“The IDF condemns the repeated use of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip by terrorist organisations, including the use of medical facilities and ambulances for terrorist purposes,” the statement said.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN humanitarian agency in Gaza, said the mass grave was “marked” by an ambulance headlight.
“What has happened here is an absolute horror,” he said in a video posted on X, adding that “health workers should never be a target”.
He said the burial site resembled a large pile of sand “obviously created by a bulldozer or similar machinery, not by the impact of an explosion”.
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilians and provides special protection for medical personnel. The US, Israel’s largest arms supplier, is also bound by its own laws, which prohibit foreign militaries from using its weapons to violate humanitarian norms.
The US has said it expects “all parties” in Gaza to respect international humanitarian law, but refused to confirm whether it is making its own assessment of whether the Israeli military killed 15 people – medics, civil defence workers and a UN official.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said: “Everything that is happening in Gaza is happening because of Hamas.”
Israel resumed attacks in Gaza on the 18th of March after a stalemate in ceasefire talks with Hamas.
ACCORDING TO THE HAMAS-RUN HEALTH MINISTRY, MORE THAN 1 000 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED IN GAZA SINCE THEN.
The Israeli armed forces launched the campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on the 7th of October 2023 in which some 1 200 people were killed and 251 hostages were taken. According to the Ministry of Health, the ensuing war in Gaza has killed more than 50 350 people.