On 23 March, Israeli soldiers killed eight paramedics execution-style in the Tal Al-Sultan neighbourhood in the southern city of Rafah in southern Gaza, four days after Tel Aviv resumed its genocidal war on the strip on 18 March, according to various reports.
On Sunday, in a statement, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) condemned the Israeli massacre, calling it the deadliest attack on Red Cross and Red Crescent workers worldwide since 2017,
The IFRC said the deadly attack brought the number of Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) volunteers and staff killed by Israeli forces since the start of Israel's war on Gaza on 7 October 2023 to 30.
The IFRC named the fallen paramedics as Mostafa Khafaga, Saleh Muamar, Ezzedine Shaath, Mohammad Bahloul, Mohamed Al-Heila, Ashraf Abu Labda, Raed Al-Sharif and Rifatt Radwan.
Meanwhile, the PRCS said one of its medics who was at the site of the Israeli attack was still missing.
On Tuesday, Amal Imam, executive director of the ERC, sent a message of condolence to Younis Al-Khatib, president of the PRCS.
“With deep sorrow and grief, we received the news of the martyrdom of eight of your paramedics in Rafah while they were fulfilling their noble humanitarian duty,” said Imam.
She added that “this heinous crime, which targeted humanitarian workers on a mission of mercy, is a true tragedy—not only for the PRCS but for all of humanity.”
The ERC pledged to continue supporting the PRCS and standing in solidarity with it, honouring the paramedics killed in the Israeli attack as heroes who gave their lives to help the wounded amid the harsh conditions facing the Palestinian people.
'When will this stop?'
In a statement on Sunday, the PRCS said Israeli forces had targeted the paramedics as they were on their way to provide first aid to victims of Israeli bombing in Rafah.
The only survivor, 27-year-old Red Crescent volunteer Munther Abed, was in the back of the first ambulance to reach the scene of the airstrike in Rafah's Hashashin district before dawn on the ominous day when it came under heavy Israeli fire, according to a report in the Guardian.
“The ambulance’s lights were clearly on, and the Red Crescent logo was visible as we headed to the scene,” Abed said.
“From the moment the shooting began, I immediately took cover on the floor of the ambulance. I didn’t hear anything from my colleagues, except for the sounds of their last moments, hearing them take their last breath. Suddenly, everything went quiet, the ambulance came to a stop, and the lights went out.”
Abed described Hashashin as “a civilian area where daily life had been going on as usual, not a designated combat zone.”
In its 17-month-old war on Gaza, Israel has deliberately struck civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, ambulances, displaced shelters, journalists, and humanitarian workers, killing and wounding thousands.
Standing at the site of the massacre during a 30 March search mission, Jonathan Whittall, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territories, described how "the ambulances were hit one by one as they advanced, as they entered into Rafah."
The mission, coordinated by Gaza's civil defence agency, PRCS, and OCHA, successfully located the remaining bodies, buried under rubble by Israeli bulldozers. This followed an earlier attempt on 27 March, when a two-hour window granted by Israeli authorities had prevented the full recovery of the bodies.
The PRCS has condemned the attack as a war crime under international humanitarian law, noting that the bodies “were recovered with difficulty as they were buried in the sand, with some showing signs of decomposition.”
IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain mourned the attack, saying, “Our network is in mourning, but this is not enough.” “When will this stop? All parties must stop the killing, and all humanitarians must be protected.”S
Since 7 October 2023, at least 408 aid workers, including at least 280 UNRWA staff and 34 PRCS staff, have been killed in Gaza, according to an Amnesty International report investigating Israeli killings of paramedics and rescue workers in the Palestinian territory.
Since resuming its genocidal war on Gaza, the Israeli army has killed over 1000 Palestinians, including at least 322 children, according to an update from the Palestinian Health Ministry on Tuesday.
The ministry added that nearly 2,400 others were injured during the same period.
The total number of Palestinians killed since the war began on 7 October 2023 has now reached 50,423, and the injured have reached 114,638, with the majority being women and children.
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