IMAGE: United Nations, OCHA’s Jonathan Whittall “They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives. We demand answers and justice” (Source UN)
The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher on Monday called for “justice and answers” after Israeli forces killed eight Palestinian medics, six civil defence first responders and a UN staff member in an attack in southern Gaza.
Humanitarian personnel from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Palestinian Civil Defence, and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were deployed on 23 March to assist injured individuals in the Rafah region of southern Gaza. During their operation, they came under gunfire from advancing Israeli forces, as reported by Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian Occupied Territory, in a comprehensive update on X.
1/6 First responders should never be a target. Yet today @UNOCHA supported @PalestineRCS and Civil Defense to retrieve colleagues from a mass grave in #Rafah #Gaza that was marked with the emergency light from one of their crushed ambulances. pic.twitter.com/xFYFXWp2c6
— Jonathan Whittall (@_jwhittall) March 30, 2025
Whittall noted that on the day of the incident, five ambulances, a fire truck, and a clearly marked UN vehicle that arrived shortly after the initial attack were all struck by Israeli fire, resulting in a loss of communication with the teams involved. The incident represents the most deadly attack on Red Crescent Red Cross workers since 2017…
VIDEO: UN releases video of ‘mass grave of first responders’ in Gaza (Source: SBS NEWS)
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Middle East Eye reports…
Gaza medics killed by Israel found handcuffed and shot in mass grave
Israeli forces are accused of executing 15 first responders who were found buried under their crushed ambulances
Fifteen humanitarian workers went missing last week after responding to a distress call from civilians being attacked by Israeli forces.
The workers include eight paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six members of the Palestinian Civil Defence search-and-rescue teams, and one UN staff member.
They were found over the weekend in a mass grave with around 20 multiple gunshots in each one of them, according to Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza.
At least one of them had their legs bound, another was decapitated, and a third was topless, he added.
The Palestinian health ministry said some of the bodies were found with their hands tied and with wounds in their heads and chests.
“Israeli occupation forces brutally savagely executed the Civil Defence teams,” Basal said, adding the humanitarian workers were buried in a mass grave, two to three metres deep, in “an attempt to conceal the crime”.
“This grave was located just metres from their vehicles, indicating the [Israeli] occupation forces removed the victims from the vehicles, executed them, and then discarded their bodies in the pit,” he said.
“This scene represents one of the most brutal massacres Gaza has witnessed in modern history.”
The health ministry condemned Israeli forces for the “heinous crime” and called for an international investigation.
The PRCS said it was “devastated” by the killing of its paramedics who were “targeted by the Israeli occupation forces while performing their humanitarian duties”.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN’s humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said the mass grave was marked with the emergency light from one of the crushed ambulances.
The killings are the single deadliest attack on Red Cross/Red Crescent workers anywhere in the world since 2017, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
‘They were killed in their uniforms’
In a series of posts on X, Whittall explained what happened.
On 23 March, 10 PRCS and six Civil Defence first responders were dispatched to the area in Rafah where Israeli forces had advanced, to collect the wounded.
Israeli forces then struck the five ambulances and the fire truck, along with a UN vehicle that arrived later. Contact was lost with them.
The Israeli military said in an initial statement that trucks were struck because they were being used by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Both groups deny using ambulances for military purposes.
After five days of attempting to coordinate with the Israeli military to reach the area, UN teams were granted permission, Whittall said.
The UN teams “encountered hundreds of civilians fleeing under gunfire” and “witnessed a woman shot in the back of the head”, he added.
“When a young man tried to retrieve her, he too was shot. We were able to recover her body using our UN vehicle,” he said.
Six days after losing contact with the first responders, UN teams found the ambulances, the fire truck and the United Nations vehicle “crushed and partially buried”.
“After hours of digging, we recovered one body – a Civil Defence worker beneath his fire truck,” Whittall said.
The recovered body on Friday was that of Anwar Abdul Hamid Al-Attar, a humanitarian mission officer.
“On the first day of Eid, we returned and recovered the buried bodies of eight PRCS, six Civil Defence and one UN staff,” Whittall continued, adding “they were killed in their uniforms, driving their clearly marked vehicles. wearing their gloves on their way to save lives. This should never have happened.”
There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israeli forces have killed at least 105 members of the Civil Defence, 27 PRCS paramedics, 284 UN agency staff and nearly 1,400 health ministry workers since the war on Gaza began in October 2023.
Overall, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has topped 50,000, including 15,000 children.
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