At least 14 bodies have been recovered in southern Gaza, including the bodies of eight medics, a week after Israeli soldiers fired at ambulances.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the bodies were retrieved after “seven days of silence” and of having access denied to the area of Rafah where they were last seen. The medics were found along with those of six members of Gaza’s civil defense agency and one U.N. agency employee, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement posted to X on Sunday.
One of its medics remained missing, the organization said.
The IFRC voiced outrage following the recovery of medical colleagues who were killed while on duty in the Gaza Strip, asking: “When will this stop?”
“I am heartbroken,” IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain said in a statement. “These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people. They were humanitarians. They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families; they did not.”
Ambulances carrying the bodies of Palestinian first responders who were killed a week before in Israeli military fire on other ambulance vehicles arrive at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 30, 2025. / Credit: AFP via Getty Images
He stressed that under the rules of International Humanitarian Law, civilians, humanitarians and health services must be protected.
“Instead of another call on all parties to protect and respect humanitarians and civilians, I pose a question: when will this stop?” Chapagain said. “All parties must stop the killing.”
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office vowed to increase military force against Hamas as Israel resumed strikes in Gaza after a two-month ceasefire.
The Israeli military acknowledged its troops had opened fire on ambulances. It told AFP in a statement this week that its forces had “opened fire toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists”.
“A few minutes afterwards, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops” who “responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles,” it said.
The IFRC said last week’s attack in Rafah was the single most deadly attack on its colleagues anywhere in the world since 2017. The number of PRCS volunteers and staff killed since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023 is now 30, the global federation said.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 921 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed its large-scale strikes.
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