UN says Israel shot dead 15 Palestinian rescuers

Fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one UN employee, were killed by Israeli forces "one by one" and buried in a mass grave nine days ago in southern Gaza, the UN said yesterday.

- Lorenzo Tondo, Jerusalem Malak A Tantesh, Gaza Julian Borger

According to the UN humanitarian affairs office (Ocha), the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) and civil defence workers were on a mission to rescue colleagues who had been shot at earlier in the day, when their clearly marked vehicles came under heavy Israeli fire in Rafah city's Tel al-Sultan district.

A Red Crescent official in Gaza said there was evidence of at least one person being detained and killed, as the body of one of the dead had been found with his hands tied.

The shootings happened on 23 March, one day into the renewed Israeli offensive in the area close to the Egyptian border. Another Red Crescent worker on the mission was reported missing.

"Seven days ago, civil defence and PRCS ambulances arrived at the scene," Jonathan Whittall, the head of Ocha in Palestine, said on X on Sunday.

"One by one, [the paramedics and civil defence workers] were hit, they were struck. Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave.

"We're digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on. They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave," Whittall said. "These ambulances have been buried in the sand. There's a UN vehicle here, buried in the sand. A bulldozer - Israeli forces bulldozer has buried them."

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said that one of its employees was among the dead found in Rafah.

"The body of our colleague killed in Rafah was retrieved yesterday, together with the aid workers from [the Palestinian Red Crescent] - all of them discarded in shallow graves - a profound violation of human dignity," Lazzarini wrote in a social media post.

Israel's military said its "initial assessment" of the incident found that its troops had opened fire on several vehicles "advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals".