Allegations have emerged that Israel killed UN personnel, medical staff, and aid workers in the Gaza Strip, then conducted unauthorized mass burials. The renewed offensive in Gaza, which resumed under the tacit approval of pro-Israel U.S. President Donald Trump, has sparked fears of escalating war crimes.
On Monday, The Guardian reported that Israeli forces allegedly killed 15 individuals in Gaza last month, including a UN staff member, medics, and paramedics, before burying them in a mass grave.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that the incident occurred in the early hours of March 23 in the southern Gaza Strip of Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan. The Red Crescent responded to the scene with five more vehicles, including an ambulance and a Civil Defence truck, after one of the ambulances that had gone to help the airstrike casualties lost contact with its headquarters. These were sent to retrieve the bodies of two medics who had been working on the site first, believed to have been killed by gunfire.
However, the attack also came on those arriving at the site, killing most of those on board the vehicle. According to the Red Crescent and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), among the 15 people killed, 8 were Red Crescent staff, 6 were civil defence workers, and 1 was a UN employee.
Dr Bashar Murad, director of the Red Crescent’s health program, claimed he was in real-time communication with a medical staff member in one of the vehicles at the time of the attack. He argued that Israeli initially bound the survivors of the initial assault, then proceeded to kill them once again.
Murad stated that the dead medic initially called to report their injuries and request for help over the phone. Minutes later, he heard Israeli soldiers approaching, giving orders in Hebrew to “take and tie them up.” Murad claimed that this indicates several medical staff were still alive at that point.
In war, harming non-combatant civilians or medical personnel constitutes a war crime, a violation of international humanitarian law. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has previously issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, with the arrival of the Netanyahu-friendly Trump administration, which includes many members of the nationalist far-right, there are growing concerns that further violations against Palestinians could be committed.