As Israeli forces progressed in the southern city of Gaza de Rafah before dawn last Sunday, a crew of ambulances set out to evacuate civilians injured by Israelis. But the ambulance was affected by the road and its crew injured.
Several ambulances and a fire truck went to the scene, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, as a United Nations vehicle did, said the United Nations. Seventeen people were sent in total.
Then they all shut up.
It took five days to the United Nations and the red grown to negotiate with the Israeli military for a safe step to search for the missing people. After receiving authorization, the UN officials said, the recovery team found 15 dead over the weekend, most of their bodies turned into a massive pit.
On Monday, the United Nations said that Israel had killed them: a rare accusation by the organization, which is usually cautious to assign clear guilt.
« They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives, » Tom Fletcher, the United Nations Humanitarian Chief, Finger Ax. « We demand answers and justice. »
The Red Crescent, the International Committee of the Red cross And the United Nations said that all the deaths were humanitarian workers who should never have been attacked. The red growing called the murders a crime of war and demanded accountability.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, Finger Ax On Monday that nine of the dead were Palestinian militants. He said that the Israeli forces « did not randomly attacked » an ambulance, but that several vehicles « were identified suspiciously advancing » without lighthouses or emergency signals towards Israeli troops, which led them to fire.
United Nations officials said that vehicles were clearly marked as rescue vehicles.
Colonel Shoshani said that during the attack, Israeli forces killed a Hamas military operation, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who participated in the assault on October 7, 2023 in Israel that caused war in Gaza.
He said that the Israeli forces had also killed eight other Hamas and Islamic Palestinian Jihad, another militant group. He accused the militants of « re -exploiting medical facilities and equipment for their activities. »
He did not directly say whether the militants were in emergency vehicles or addressed the identity of the other six people killed.
After the vehicles were fired, the United Nations officials, the ambulances, a fire truck and the United Nations vehicle were below, and crushed by the Israeli forces.
The red growing said that a drug was still missing. According to the aid group, Survivor Lone, a red crescent member, was detained, struck and released by Israeli forces. He told the colleagues that the Israeli forces had killed the other crew members in their ambulance, according to red crescent officials and the United Nations.
Of the 17 people involved, 10 were workers of the red crescent, six were those who were those who responded to Gaza’s civil defense and one was a United Nations worker, according to United Nations officials.
The United Nations Human Officer in Gaza, Jonathan Whittall, joined the recovery team and Published photos A X that shows the wrinkled vehicles: Metal shells borrowed from the sand. The great navy blue « N » in the United Nations vehicle was still visible.
« One by one, they were run over, they were hit. Their bodies were gathered and buried in this massive grave, » he said in a video shared by the United Nations.
On Friday, the UN team that went in search of the missing people witnessed new scenes of chaos and violence in Rafah, including « hundreds of civilians fleeing under fire fires », Mr. Whittall Finger Ax. A woman said in the back of the head, he said.
He posted a video showing what he said came: two men headed for the road, apparently to recover the woman’s body. Then one of them was also shot. Mr Whittall did not say who shot the shots.
On Saturday, the United Nations convoy found wrinkled vehicles. Whittall said that the hours of digging ceded a body, a civil defense worker buried under his game of fire. They returned to the remaining bodies on Sunday.
Whittall narrated the search for bodies in the video message.
« We are digging them with their uniforms, with their gloves, » he said. « They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a massive pit. »
The grave, he said, was marked with the emergency light of one of the destroyed ambulances.
Colonel Shoshani, Israeli military spokesman, said that vehicles, unlike others from the same route earlier this day, had not received permission from the Israeli forces to be.
Nebal Farsakh, a spokesman for the Palestine Red Society, said that when the ambulances were proposed around 3:30 on March 23, the Israeli forces had not yet closed the area as a « red zone », where ambulances had to clean their movements with Israel.
Israel did not immediately address the allegations to bury people in mass graves or crush their vehicles.
In total, said the Red Crescent, 27 of its doctors have been killed Ever since the war began.
A cessation of fire paved the fight in Gaza from January to 18 March, when Israel Broke it.
Sheikh Ahmad cartilage and Aaron Boxerman contributed to reporting Jerusalem.
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