Israel has been accused of targeting aid workers in Gaza after the remains of 15 people, including eight medics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), were recovered following what the aid organisation called a “war crime”.
The PRCS said in a statement on Sunday the group, who came under fire more than a week ago, were attacked “by the Israeli occupation forces while performing their humanitarian duties”.
It said it also recovered the bodies of six civil defence members and one UN employee from the same area, while a ninth medic “remains missing”.
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It named the medics, calling them “martyred”, and said the “massacre” was a tragedy “for humanitarian work and humanity”.
The “targeting” of aid workers “despite their protected status and the Red Crescent emblem can only be considered a war crime”, the statement said.
The Israeli military said on Monday that an inquiry had found that troops had opened fire on vehicles including ambulances and fire trucks that approached a position without prior coordination and without headlights or emergency signals.
Several members of the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were killed, it said.
In a statement, the IDF said it condemned “the repeated use of civilian infrastructure by the terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, including the use of medical facilities and ambulances for terrorist purposes”.
Israel’s military did not comment directly on the deaths of the Red Crescent workers but later told Reuters it had allowed the bodies to be recovered from the area, which it described as an active combat zone.
The bodies were found in sand in the south of the Gaza Strip in what Jonathan Whittall, Gaza head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, called a “mass grave”, marked with the emergency light from a crushed ambulance.
Mr Whittall posted pictures and video of Red Crescent teams digging in the sand for the bodies and workers laying them out on the ground, covered in plastic sheets.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said on X on Monday that the bodies had been “discarded in shallow graves” in what he called “a profound violation of human dignity”.
In a statement late on Sunday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “appalled” at the deaths of volunteers “risking their own lives to provide support to others. It did not allocate blame for the attacks.
The group went missing on 23 March, after Israel resumed an all-out offensive against Hamas earlier this month.
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More than 400 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Mr Lazzarini said.
According to the UN, at least 1,060 healthcare workers have been killed in the 18 months since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
The UN is reducing its international staff in Gaza by a third because of safety concerns.
Palestinian health authorities say more than 50,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October assault, when Hamas militants crossed the border into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, and taking some 250 hostage.
