Nine doctors of the Red Crescent of Palestine (PRC) in ambulances, as well as some civil defense workers, went to help people from Rafah, Gaza, and disappeared on March 23 after being attacked by Israeli forces.
What followed was a week of Israeli obstruction until international teams are finally able to enter the region where doctors and rescuers have disappeared.
They found horrible proof of direct attacks on humanitarian workers. A doctor remains missing.
Here is everything we know about the way Israel killed these first stakeholders in Gaza:
What happened to the doctors of the Red Crescent in Gaza?
Israeli forces killed them.
An ambulance was sent to Al-Hashaashin, Rafah, to help people injured by Israeli attacks on Sunday, March 23. Israeli soldiers shot it, injuring the crew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5llj15ihmk
“In the early hours of Sunday, March 23, our colleagues from the Palestine Red Red Crescent led in the Al-Hashaashin region, Rafah to save lives and were criticized,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), told Al Jazeera Longa (IFRC).
The PRCs then sent three other ambulances to help the injured people that their colleagues were trying to reach and save their colleagues who had been attacked.
All the teams sent to support the initial ambulance did it during the hours of clarity, confirmed the civil defense.
The PRCs “have lost contact with their colleagues,” said Della Longa, and started trying to find them.
1/6 The first speakers should never be a target. Yet today @Unocha supported @Palestinercs and civil defense to recover colleagues from a mass grave #Rafah #Gaza This was marked with the emergency light of one of their crushed ambulances. pic.twitter.com/xfyfxwp2c6
– Jonathan Whittall (@_jwhittall) March 30, 2025
Who are the doctors killed by Israel?
There were three ambulance agents – carrying the wounded and sometimes offer emergency health care: Ezzedine Shaath, Mosafa Khafaga and Saleh Muamemer.
There were also first five respondents: Ashraf Abu Labda, Mohammad Bahloul, Mohammed al-Heila, Raed al-Sharif and Rifatt Radwan.
Ambulance agent Assad al-Nassasra is always missing. “We don’t know where he is,” said Della Longa.
“The colleagues who were killed and found left behind more than 20 children,” he added.
Israel has killed 30 volunteers and staff from the Palestinian Red Crescent – humanitarian workers protected by international humanitarian law – since October 7.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society is devastated by the murder of eight of its EMT in Rafah, which were targeted by the Israeli army while exercising their humanitarian duties. They answered an emergency call to help the injured after Israeli air strikes in … pic.twitter.com/qk79mmfa9l
– PRCS (@palestinercs) March 30, 2025
Who else Israel killed in this incident?
The bodies of 14 murdered people were found in a gradual grave of mass, according to the PRC.
Eight were identified as PRC doctors, five were civil defense workers and one was an employee of the United Nations.
How were they killed?
They were killed “one after the other”, then buried in the sand with their emergency vehicles, said the UN.
“The available information indicates that the first team was killed by Israeli forces on March 23, and that other emergency and aid teams were struck one after the other for several hours while they were looking for their missing colleagues,” a spokesperson for the United Nations Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in Palestine.
“Their bodies have been gathered and buried in this mass tomb,” said Ocha chief Jonathan Whittall, from the scene.
“We dig them in their uniforms, with their gloves. They were there to save lives,” he said.
“These ambulances were buried in the sand. There is a United Nations vehicle here,… (an) the Bulldozer Israeli forces have buried them. ”
What did Israel have to say?
Israeli army international spokesman Nadav Shoshani said the doctors had not been deliberately killed.
Referring to Israeli soldiers pulling out of clearly marked ambulances and United Nations vehicles, Shoshani wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “several non -coordinated vehicles have been identified, advancing with suspicion of TDS troops without headlights or emergency signals”, not clarifying what was understood by “non -coordinated vehicle”.
Shoshani also said without evidence that the “terrorists” were hidden in the midst of the rescuers and that “the forces (Israeli) eliminated a military agent of Hamas, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who participated in the massacre of October 7, as well as eight other terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”
None of the names reported having been recovered from the serious mass corresponds to the name that Shoshani said.
Soshani did not explain the fact that a body was recovered with its linked hands, according to the red crescent in Gaza, and that the Israeli bulldozers had tried to bury the vehicles afterwards.
The Israeli allegations of launching the attacks on medical facilities in Gaza were often “vague” and sometimes “contradicted by information accessible to the public,” the United Nations Human Rights Head, Volker Turk, the United Nations Council in January.
The IDF randomly attacked an ambulance on March 23. Let me go through what happened step by step:
1. Sunday, several non -coordinated vehicles were identified, advancing FDI troops with suspicion without headlights or emergency signals. Tropos faithful then… https://t.co/vdtyxd8qj5
– LTC Nadav Shoshani (@LTC_Shoshani) March 31, 2025
How were their bodies found?
Della Longa said that, for an entire week, the IFRC, the PRC, the ICRC and the UN called on the Israeli authorities to enter the region to investigate.
Israel blocked requests until a mission is able to enter and search for missing rescuers.
The video of the scene has shown that researchers dig several bodies wearing orange emergency vests, some stacked on each other.
A body in a civil defense vest was removed from the grave only so that the researchers realize that it was a torso without legs.
What does the CICR say?
IFRC secretary general, Jagan Chapagain, said in a statement: “These devoted ambulance workers responded to the wounded … They wore emblems that should have protected them; Their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families; They did not do it.
“Even in the most complex conflict zones, there are rules (which) could not be clearer – civilians must be protected; Humanitarian workers should be protected. Health services must be protected.
“Our network is in mourning, but that’s not enough … I ask a question:” When will it stop? ” All parties must stop murder and all humanitarian workers must be protected. »»
Della Longa stressed that half of the Gaza ambulances are no longer functional, or due to substitute damage, that is, due to the lack of fuel.
What do others say?
The UN help head, Tom Fletcher, said in an article on X that the first stakeholders “were killed by Israeli forces when we try to save lives. We demand answers and justice ”.
The spokesman for the US State Department Tammy Bruce told journalists that the United States expected “all parties” to comply with international humanitarian law, without clarifying what a story of killings, Israel or the UN, she was referring.
Mohamed Duar of Amnesty International, spokesperson for the occupied Palestinian territory, said: “Despite their protected status under Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, Israeli forces continue to target health workers … ambulances and hospitals continue to be burned and destroyed.”
“There is no respect for humanitarian workers,” said Della Longa to Al Jazeera. Violence is “not new to Gaza, but the extent and severity of what we see are shocking, horrible and not acceptable”.
“There is a deterioration in respecting international rules,” he said. “It shouldn’t and shouldn’t happen.”
