Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinian doctors and buried them in a mass tomb, said the UN

Deir al -Balah, Gaza Strip (AP) – The Palestinians organized funeral on Monday for 15 doctors and emergency workers killed by Israeli troops in the south of Gaza, after their bodies and their mutilated ambulances were found buried in an impromptu mass tomb, apparently plowed by Israeli military bulloses.

The Palestinian red crescent claims that workers killed and their vehicles were clearly marked as medical and humanitarian staff and accused Israeli troops of having killed them “in cold blood”. The Israeli army claims that its troops opened fire on vehicles that have approached them “suspect” without identification.

The dead included eight workers in the Red Crescent, six members of the Gaza Civil Defense Emergency Unit and a staff member of UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for the Palestinians. The International / Croissant Red Red Cross said it was the deadliest attack on its staff in eight years.

From War in Gaza started 18 months ago, Israel killed more than 100 civil defense workers and more than 1,000 health workers, according to the UN

Here’s what we know about what happened.

Missing for days

The emergency teams had been missing since March 23, when they went around noon to recover the victims after the Israeli forces launched an offensive in the district of Tel-Sultan of the southern city of Rafah.

The army had called for an evacuation from the region earlier in the day, saying that Hamas activists operated there. Civil defense alerts at the time said that the displaced Palestinians resuming themselves in the region had been affected and that a team that saved them was “surrounded by Israeli troops”.

“The information available indicates that the first team was killed by Israeli forces on March 23,” the UN said in a statement on Sunday evening.

Other emergency teams who went to rescue the first team were “hit one after the others for several hours,” he said. All the teams were released during the hours of clarity, according to the Civil Defense.

The Israeli army said on Sunday that March 23, the troops opened fire on vehicles which “progressed with suspicion” towards them without emergency signals.

He said that “an initial assessment” determined that the troops killed a Hamas agent named Mohammed Amin Shobaki and eight other activists. Israel has struck ambulances and other emergency vehicles in the past, accusing Hamas activists to use them for transport.

However, none of the members of the deceased staff of the Red Crescent and the Civil Defense had this name, and no other organization was reported on the site, raising questions about the suggestion of the army that alleged activists were among the rescuers.

The soldiers did not immediately respond to the requests for names of the other alleged activists killed or to comment on the way in which emergency workers were buried.

After a ceasefire that lasted about two months, Israel relaunched its military campaign in Gaza on March 18. Since then, the bombing and new ground attacks that have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The ministry count does not distinguish between activists and civilians, but it is said that more than half of those who are killed are women and children.

Aid workers say that ambulance teams and humanitarian staff have been criticized in the renewed aggression. A worker of the charitable organization World Central Kitchen was killed on Friday by an Israeli strike who struck next to a kitchen distributing free meals. A March 19 Strike of Israeli tanks on a compound of the UN killed a staff member, the UN said, although Israel denies being behind the explosion.

Mass grave

For days, Israeli forces would not allow access to the site where the emergency teams have disappeared, said the UN.

On Wednesday, a United Nations convoy tried to reach the site but met Israeli troops opening fire on people.

The convoy saw a woman who had been slaughtered on the road. The dashboard video shows the speaking staff to recover the woman. Then two people are seen cross the road. Shots rings and they flee. We stumble, apparently injured, before he was killed and falls on his face to the ground. The UN said that the team had recovered the woman’s body and left.

On Sunday, the UN said that the teams had been able to reach the site after the Israeli army informed her where she had buried the bodies, in a sterile area on the banks of Tel-Sultan. Images published by the UN show workers from RPC and civil defense, wearing masks and bright orange vests, digging through dirt hills which seemed to have been stacked by Israeli bulldozers.

The images show them to dig several bodies wearing orange emergency vests. Some bodies are found stacked on each other. At one point, they remove a body in a cable defense vest outside the dirt, and it turns out to be a torso without legs. Several ambulances and a United Nations vehicle, all strongly damaged or torn, are also buried in dirt.

“Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass tomb,” said Jonathan Whittall, with the United Nations Humanitarian Office Ocha, speaking on the site in the video. “We excavate them in their uniforms, with their gloves. They were there to save lives. ”

“It’s an absolute horror what happened here,” he said.

Funeral

A giant crowd gathered on Monday outside the Nasser hospital morgue in the southern city of Khan Younis while the bodies of the eight employees of killed PRCS were highlighted for the funeral. Their bodies were arranged on civilians wrapped in a white fabric with the logo of the red croissant and their photos, because the family and others have held funeral prayers on them. The funeral for the other seven followed.

“They were killed in composure by the Israeli occupation, despite the clear nature of their humanitarian mission,” said Raed al-Nimis, spokesperson for the Red Crescent in Gaza, AP.

Israeli troops killed at least 30 doctors of the Red Crescent during the war. Among them, two were killed in February 2024 when they tried to rescue Hind Rajab, a 5 -year -old girl who was killed with six other parents When they were trapped in their car under Israeli fire in northern Gaza.

From Geneva, the leader of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Jagan Chapagain, said that the staff killed last week “wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked.”

“All humanitarian workers must be protected,” he said.

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Keath and Khaled reported in Cairo