Bodies of 15 aid workers recovered in Gaza; 1 still missing

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: Mar 31, 2025 6:16 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

Fifteen exigency and assistance workers from the Red Crescent, Palestinian Civil Defence and the United Nations person been recovered from a sedate successful the soil successful the southbound of the Gaza Strip, UN officials said.

UN aid main Tom Fletcher said successful a societal media station connected X that the bodies were buried adjacent "wrecked and well-marked vehicles," adding: "They were killed by Israeli forces portion trying to prevention lives. We request answers and justice."

In a connection precocious connected Sunday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was "appalled" astatine the deaths, which included 8 of its workers.

"Their bodies were identified contiguous and person been recovered for dignified burial. These unit and volunteers were risking their ain lives to supply enactment to others," the ICRC said.

The Palestine Red Crescent said it besides recovered the bodies of six civilian defence members and 1 UN worker from the aforesaid area. It said Israeli forces had targeted the workers. Red Cross statements did not apportion blasted for the attacks.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said 1 idiosyncratic from the nine-strong Red Crescent radical is inactive unaccounted for. The radical went missing connected March 23.

Competing claims

The Israeli subject said Monday that an enquiry had recovered that connected March 23, troops opened occurrence connected a radical of vehicles that included ambulances and occurrence trucks erstwhile the vehicles approached a presumption without anterior co-ordination and without headlights oregon exigency signals.

It said respective militants belonging to the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad were killed.

"The IDF condemns the repeated usage of civilian infrastructure by the violent organizations successful the Gaza Strip, including the usage of aesculapian facilities and ambulances for violent purposes," it said successful a statement.

It did not remark straight connected the deaths of the Red Cross workers.

In a aboriginal connection to Reuters, it said it had facilitated the evacuation of the bodies from the area, which it described arsenic an progressive combat zone. It did not specifically respond to questions astir wherefore the bodies were retrieved beneath the sand, nor wherefore the vehicles were recovered crushed.

The incidental was the azygous most-deadly onslaught connected Red Cross Red Crescent workers anyplace since 2017, the IFRC said.

"I americium heartbroken. These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people. They were humanitarians," said IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain.

"They wore emblems that should person protected them; their ambulances were intelligibly marked," helium added.

According to the United Nations, astatine slightest 1,060 health-care workers person been killed successful the 18 months since Israel launched its violative successful Gaza aft Hamas-led fighters stormed confederate Israel connected Oct. 7, 2023.

The planetary assemblage is reducing its planetary unit successful Gaza by one-third owed to unit information concerns.