Fate of 9 Palestine Red Crescent members remains unknown

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Saturday that the fate of nine crew members in the Gaza Strip remains unknown nearly a week after Israeli forces had hit ambulances.

The Israeli military said troops had opened fired on ambulances after identifying them as “suspicious vehicles,” in an incident on Sunday in southern Gaza that Hamas authorities condemned as a “war crime,” reporting at least one person killed.

The gunfire in Rafah city’s Tal Al Sultan neighbourhood came just days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the southern area, close to the Egyptian border, after the military resumed its bombardments of Gaza on March 18 following an almost two-month-long truce.

The Red Crescent in a statement accused Israeli authorities of refusing to allow search operations to locate the missing workers.

“For the seventh consecutive day, the fate of nine Palestine Red Crescent EMTs remains unknown after they were besieged and targeted by Israeli forces in Rafah,” it said.

“We condemn Israel’s deliberate obstruction of search efforts and hold it fully responsible for the lives of our team members,” the statement added.

The emergency response service said that “initial reports from the crew at the time of the incident confirmed they came under heavy gunfire from Israeli forces, resulting in multiple injuries.”

The Israeli military told reporters in a statement that its forces had “opened fire towards Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas fighters.”

“A few minutes afterwards, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops” who “responded by firing towards the suspicious vehicles,” it said.

The military did not say whether there was fire coming from the vehicles.

“Some of the suspicious vehicles... were ambulances and fire trucks,” the military statement said, citing “an initial inquiry” of the incident.

The day after the incident, Gaza’s civil defence agency said in a statement that it had not heard from a team of six rescuers from Tal Al Sultan who had been urgently dispatched to respond to deaths and injuries.

On Friday, the agency reported finding the body of the team leader as well as the rescue vehicles — an ambulance and a fire engine — and said a vehicle from the Palestine Red Crescent Society was also “reduced to a pile of scrap metal.”

“The targeted killing of rescue workers — who are protected under international humanitarian law — constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” said Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim.

Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that since March 18, Israeli airstrikes have hit “densely populated areas,” with “patients killed in their hospital beds. Ambulances shot at. First responders killed.”

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.

Earlier, a senior Hamas official said that talks between the Palestinian movement and mediators over a ceasefire deal are gaining momentum as Israel continues intensive operations in Gaza.

“We hope that the coming days will bring a real breakthrough in the war situation, following intensified communications with and between mediators in recent days,” Bassem Naim said in a statement.

Palestinian sources close to Hamas had told reporters that talks began on Thursday evening between Hamas and mediators from Egypt and Qatar to revive a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza.

The talks aim to “achieve a ceasefire, open border crossings, (and) allow humanitarian aid in,” Naim said on Friday.

Most importantly, he said, the proposal aims to bring about a resumption in “negotiations on the second phase, which must lead to a complete end to the war and the withdrawal of occupation forces.”

Agencies