ISRAEL must provide “answers” after killing emergency workers and leaving their bodies in a mass grave, according to a UN chief.
Some 15 bodies were recovered from the Tal Al Sultan area of Rafah in Gaza on Sunday and the UN said they were “clearly identified” as humanitarian workers.
The UN’s humanitarian affairs chief, Tom Fletcher, said: “They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives. We demand answers and justice.”
Emergency workers from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Palestinian Civil Defence and one worker with the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA were dispatched on March 23 to collect injured people when they came under fire from Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers, according to Jonathan Whittall, one of the international agency’s top officials in the region.
He said that five ambulances, a fire truck and a “clearly marked” UN vehicle were all hit by IDF fire, adding: “One survivor said Israeli forces had killed both of the crew in his ambulance.
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
“For days, [the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory] coordinated to reach the site but our access was only granted five days later.”
Whittall said that when he and his team travelled to the area they encountered “hundreds of civilians fleeing under gunfire”. He added: “We witnessed a woman shot in the back of the head. When a young man tried to retrieve her, he too was shot.”
When the team arrived at the site they encountered a “devastating scene”, said the UN official, adding that they were eventually able to recover the bodies of emergency workers.
He said: “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.”
Jagan Chapagain, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said: “These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people […] They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families: they did not.”
He added that “even in the most complex conflict zones, there are rules”.
The incident represents the most deadly attack on Red Crescent Red Cross workers since 2017, according to the UN.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini (above) said in a post on Twitter/X on Monday that another staffer from the agency had died as well that the worker whose body was retrieved on Sunday, bringing the total killed to 280 killed since the violence erupted on October 7, 2023.
"Targeting or endangering emergency responders, journalists or humanitarian workers is a flagrant and severe disregard of international law," said Lazzarini, noting these killings had become "routine" in Gaza.
Israeli forces said the emergency responders had been fired on after their vehicles “advanced suspiciously”, according to reports, claiming that a Hamas operative had been killed along with “eight other terrorists”.
Senior Labour backbencher Diane Abbott said: "This massacre must be one of the worst atrocities of all. Rescue workers murdered one by one, then buried in a mass grave. This is clearly a war crime.
"All those responsible should be brought to trial. And we should stop arming Israel."
