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Red Crescent Demands Investigation Into Israel Massacre of Gaza Paramedics
"International silence in the face of attacks on humanitarian teams not only equates to a death sentence for Palestinians in Gaza but also poses a direct threat to humanitarian work everywhere."
Apr 09, 2025
The Palestine Red Crescent Society is demanding an independent international investigation into what it called Israel's recent "deliberate killing" of 15 Palestinian first responders, including eight PRCS paramedics in southern Gaza, after video found on a phone buried with one of their bodies showed Israel lied about the incident and autopsies found that the men had been shot with "intent to kill."
"Accountability should not require video evidence. It should not take global outrage for the truth to be acknowledged," PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said in a video published Wednesday. This, after PRCS issued a statement Monday accusing Israel of a "massacre" and a "full-fledged war crime" that "reflects a dangerous pattern of repeated violation of international humanitarian law."
Citing the Geneva Conventions, PRCS called for "an independent international investigation and for all perpetrators to be held accountable," adding that "international silence in the face of attacks on humanitarian teams not only equates to a death sentence for Palestinians in Gaza but also poses a direct threat to humanitarian work everywhere."
On March 30, PRCS said it had recovered the bodies of 15 Palestinian first responders from a mass grave, including eight Red Crescent emergency medical team members, six Civil Defense personnel, and one United Nations worker. The first responders were killed by Israeli forces on March 23 while traveling "on duty" in five ambulances, a fire truck, and a U.N. vehicle in the al-Hashashin area of southern Gaza. One PRCS medic is still missing after apparently being taken prisoner by Israeli troops.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that "some of these bodies were bound and shot in the chest" before being "buried in a deep hole to prevent their identification." The vehicles in their convoy were destroyed and buried along with the victims in what officials said was an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the massacre.
PRCS spokesperson Mahmoud Basal toldDrop Site News that one of the victims was "beheaded," and that "the least harmed among them had at least 20 bullets fired at him."
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Col. Nadav Shoshani claimed troops opened fire in response to unknown vehicles "advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals."
Shoshani further contended that nine of the first responders were "terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad"—an accusation often made by Israeli officials against many of the thousands of medical professionals, humanitarian workers, and journalists killed or wounded by the IDF.
However, video found on the cellphone of 23-year-old Rifaat Radwan, one of the slain medics, revealed that the ambulances and fire truck were not only clearly marked but also had their emergency lights flashing when they were attacked.
Israeli troops can be heard in the video firing on the convoy and getting closer. Realizing he was about to die, Radwan said: "Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose—to help people."
Speaking to Middle East Eye, Radwan's mother called the killing of her son and the other first responders "something horrific, beyond comprehension" and "a crime against humanity."
Radwan's video forced the IDF to admit that its version of events was "mistaken." British Tunisian journalist Soumaya Ghannoushi wrote that the slain medic's "voice from beyond the grave destroyed Israel's lie."
There was also the testimony of survivor Munther Abed, a 27-year-old longtime PRCS volunteer, who toldDrop Site News that the first responders "were directly and deliberately shot at" by IDF troops.
"The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101,'" he said. "The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at?"
🚨Report: The sole survivor of the paramedics Israeli massacre in Rafah, Munther Abed, recounts the moments when his colleagues were executed before his eyes and how he survived the Israeli attack that targeted Red Crescent and Civil Defense ambulances on March 23, killing 15… pic.twitter.com/3cvTDPOGJw
— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) April 3, 2025
Abed says he was kidnapped and tortured by IDF soldiers, and that he saw Assad al-Nassara, the missing medic, in Israeli custody.
"This is not the first violation and there have been many violations before," Abed said. "Where is our protection according to international humanitarian law?"
At least 30 PRCS workers and volunteers have been killed by Israeli forces since Israel launched the war in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. Such killings rarely make international headlines but sometimes do, like when two medics were fatally shot while trying to rescue Hind Rajab, a mortally wounded 6-year-old girl trapped in a car surrounded by dead relatives following an IDF attack in January 2024.
As Ghannoushi noted: "Palestinian medics say their uniforms don't protect them; they mark them for death. Symbols once sacred—the Red Crescent vest, the white coat, surgical scrubs—are now treated as targets."
"In Gaza, medicine is rebellion, and compassion is treason," she added. "To heal is to defy extermination."
The first responders' massacre has received widespread international media coverage, and even the staunchly pro-Zionist U.S. corporate media pressed Israeli officials for answers. Fox News chief foreign affairs correspondent Trey Yingst appeared skeptical of Israel's assertion that the slain first responders were terrorists: "Asked multiple times for evidence to support that claim, none was provided," he said during one report.
Jonathan Whittall, who heads the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Palestine, angrily rejected Israel's claim, saying the first responders were executed "one by one."
"We're digging them out with uniforms, with their gloves on," he said last week. "They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave."
Whittall called the killings "very emblematic of the point we've reached in Gaza."
"What is happening here is defying—it defies decency, it defies humanity, it defies the law," he added. "It is a war without limits."
The U.S.-backed war—for which Israel is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—continued for the 551st day on Wednesday, with scores of Palestinians reportedly killed by IDF airstrikes and shelling across Gaza. A strike on a multistory residential building in the Shejaiyya neighborhood east of Gaza City killed at least 29 people including eight children, according to local medical officials. More than 60 others were wounded in the strike and two dozen other people are missing beneath the rubble.
The IDF—which after the October 7 attack explicitly allowed an unlimited number of civilians to be killed in strikes targeting even one Hamas member, no matter how lowly his rank—claimed it bombed the homes in a bid to eliminate a "senior Hamas terrorist."
The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that Israeli forces have killed 1,482 Palestinians in Gaza since unilaterally breaking a January cease-fire on March 18. This figure includes more than 320 children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. The ministry said that at least 50,846 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 115,700 have been wounded, since October 2023. Upward of 14,000 others are missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed-out buildings.
Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced—often multiple times—and have suffered widespread and sometimes deadly
starvation and illness fueled by Israel's "complete siege" of the coastal enclave.
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'We'll Own It': Trump Floats US Takeover of Gaza—After Ethnically Cleansing Palestinians
Standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said that "the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip," which would be emptied of Palestinians.
Feb 04, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States will "take over" Gaza after emptying the embattled enclave of nearly all its native Palestinians, sparking a firestorm of criticism that included allegations of intent to commit ethnic cleansing.
Speaking during a press conference with fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump told reporters, "The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too."
"We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings—level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area," Trump continued.
"We're going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something that the entire Middle East could be very proud of," he said, evoking the proposals of varying seriousness to build Jewish-only beachfront communities over the ruins of Gaza.
Trump said that U.S. developers will "level it out" and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave Palestine's coastal enclave.
Doubling down on his January call for the removal of most of Gaza's population to Egypt and Jordan—both of which vehemently rejected the proposal—Trump said that "it would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where [Palestinians] wouldn't want to return."
"Why would they want to return?" asked Trump. "The place has been hell."
Asked how many Palestinians should leave Gaza, Trump replied, "all of them," citing a figure of 1.7-1.8 million Palestinians out of an estimated population of approximately 2.3 million people.
The forced transfer of a population by an occupying power is a war crime, according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention—under which Israel's settler colonies in the occupied West Bank are also illegal.
"I don't think people should be going back to Gaza," Trump continued. "Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative. If they had an alternative, they'd much rather not go back to Gaza and live in a beautiful alternative that's safe."
Asked if he would deploy U.S. troops to Gaza, Trump said that "we'll do what's necessary. If it's necessary, we'll do that."
Palestinian Ambassador to the U.N. Riyad Mansour responded by affirming that "our country and our home is the Gaza Strip."
"It's part of Palestine," he stressed. "Our homeland is our homeland."
Responding to Trump's remarks, Netanyahu praised his ally's "willingness to puncture conventional thinking" and stand behind Israel.
"[Trump] sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism, so many attacks against us, so many trials and so many tribulations," Netanyahu told reporters as he stood beside the U.S. leader. "He has a different idea, and I think it's worth paying attention to this. We're talking about it. He's exploring it with his people, with his staff."
"I think it's something that could change history," Netanyahu added, "and it's worthwhile really pursuing this avenue."
There is currently a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, where more than 15 months of Israeli bombardment, invasion, and siege have left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and more than 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to local and international officials and agencies.
Numerous Israeli leaders have advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the Jewish recolonization of the coastal enclave, most of whose inhabitants are the descendants of Palestinians forcibly expelled from other parts of Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in the late 1940s. Palestinians ethnically cleansed during what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, have since been denied their U.N.-guaranteed right of return to their homeland.
Last November, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon acknowledged that the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza was underway. Other Israeli political and military leaders have said that the so-called "Generals' Plan"—a strategy to starve and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from northern Gaza—was effectively in progress.
Palestinian-American journalist Ramzy Baroud responded to Trump's remarks in a video posted on social media Tuesday.
"Now, you would say, 'Wait a minute, Trump seems to be really, really determined, his heart is set on ethnically cleansing Palestinians, and this subject is back on the table,'" Baroud said. "The question is, whose table? It's not on the table of the Palestinian people."
Earlier Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and continuing the freeze on funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which Israel has baselessly
accused of being a terrorist organization.
In a fact sheet viewed by multiple media outlets, the White House asserted that UNHRC "has not fulfilled its purpose and continues to be used as a protective body for countries committing horrific human rights violations."
"The UNHRC has demonstrated consistent bias against Israel, focusing on it unfairly and disproportionately in council proceedings," the White House continued. "In 2018, the year President Trump withdrew from the UNHRC in his first administration, the organization passed more resolutions condemning Israel than Syria, Iran, and North Korea combined."
UNHRC spokesperson Pascal Sim noted Tuesday that the U.S. has been an observer state, not a UNHRC member, since January 1, and according to U.N. rules, it cannot "technically withdraw from an intergovernmental body that is no longer part of."
The UNRWA funding pause is based on Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that a dozen of the agency's more than 13,000 workers in Gaza were involved in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. These claims prompted numerous nations including the United States to cut off funding for UNRWA last year. The U.S. had been UNRWA's biggest benefactor, providing $300-400 million annually to the lifesaving organization.
UNRWA fired nine employees in response to Israel's claim, even as the agency admitted there was no evidence linking the staffers to October 7. Faced with this lack of evidence, the European Union and countries including Japan, Germany, Canada, and Australia reinstated funding for UNRWA. Last March, then-U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill prohibiting American funding for the agency.
Israeli lawmakers have also
banned UNRWA from operating in Israel, severely hampering the agency's ability to carry out its mission throughout Palestine, including in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
According to the most recent UNRWA situation report, at least 272 of the agency's workers have been killed by Israeli forces, which since October 2023 have bombed numerous schools, shelters, and other facilities used by the agency.
William Deere, the director of UNRWA's Washington, D.C. office, toldPBS earlier this week that "there is no alternative to UNRWA."
"UNRWA performs a unique function in the U.N. system," Deere explained. "We are a direct service provider. We run... a healthcare network, we run an education system, we provide relief and social services."
As U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said last month, "UNRWA has been carrying out activities in the occupied Palestinian territory for more than 70 years... and has thus accumulated unparalleled experience in providing assistance that is tailored to the specific needs of Palestine refugees."
Trump's executive order preceded his meeting with Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court after it issued arrest warrants for him and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The tribunal also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
The U.S. president's directives also followed his January freeze on foreign aid to countries except for Israel and Egypt, and his plan to shut down the United States Agency for International Development.
This article and its headline have been updated to include Trump's call for U.S. ownership of Gaza.
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UNRWA Preparing to Shutter Gaza, West Bank Operations Over Israeli Laws
"The laws would cripple the humanitarian response in Gaza and deprive millions of Palestine refugees of essential services in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem," said the agency's leader.
Jan 03, 2025
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, a crucial source of food, water, medicine, and more for Palestinians, is preparing to shut down its offices in the West Bank and Gaza in response to two laws passed by the Israeli parliament that, if enforced, will effectively prevent the UNRWA from operating in those locations.
The laws were passed in October and are set to go into effect at the end of January.
The New York Timesreported Thursday that U.N. officials say they are preparing to wind down UNRWA operations in both locations, a move that Jamie McGoldrick, who oversaw the U.N. humanitarian operation across Gaza and the West Bank until April, told the Times "would be a massive impact on an already catastrophic situation."
"If that is what the Israeli intention is—to remove any ability for us to save lives—you have to question what is the thinking and what is the end goal?" McGoldrick added.
UNRWA and Israel have long had a contentious relationship, but tensions escalated after Israel accused some of the agency's employees of taking part in Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. This prompted the U.S.—the largest international funder of the agency, which relies almost entirely on voluntary contributions from donor states—to suspend funding for UNRWA last January. Congress later passed a bill prohibiting UNRWA funding through at least March 2025.
In October, the Israeli parliament passed two bills targeting UNRWA— one that mandates UNRWA "will not operate any missions, won't provide any service, and won't hold any activity—directly or indirectly—in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel," and a second under which the Israeli agency that handles humanitarian issues, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, will have to cut off contact with UNRWA.
"The laws would cripple the humanitarian response in Gaza and deprive millions of Palestine refugees of essential services in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem," wrote Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, in an opinion piece for The Guardian published in mid-December.
UNRWA has provided support to Palestinians for decades and been the backbone of aid response in Gaza since Israel's cataclysmic military campaign on the enclave began in October 2023. It is the largest aid organization operating in the Palestinian territories, according to the Wall Street Journal.
One Palestinian woman in the West Bank told the paper that halting UNRWA's operations is "life or death."
Kenneth Roth, the former the executive director of Human Rights Watch, reacted to this quote on social media Friday, writing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "picks death (for Palestinians)."
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