The Palestinian Purple Crescent, which misplaced 9 of its employees within the March 23 Israeli assault, referred to as killings one of many warfare’s ‘darkest moments’.
New proof means that a few of the 15 Palestinian help staff killed by Israeli forces in Rafah final week have been shot at shut vary in what gave the impression to be execution-style killings – an assault the Palestine Purple Crescent Society (PRCS) has described as “one of many darkest moments” of the warfare.
Forensic analyst Ahmad Dhaher, who personally examined 5 of the our bodies at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, mentioned the proof pointed to close-range gunfire.
“Preliminary evaluation suggests they have been executed, not from a distant vary, because the places of the bullet wounds have been particular and intentional,” Dhaher advised The Guardian newspaper.
“One remark is that the bullets have been geared toward one particular person’s head, one other at their coronary heart and a 3rd particular person had been shot with six or seven bullets within the torso.”
He cautioned that the state of decomposition made it tough to attract definitive conclusions.
The help staff disappeared on March 23 throughout a rescue mission in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood after it got here underneath assault by Israeli forces. The group included 9 PRCS medics, six civil defence staff and one United Nations worker.
In response to the UN Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), after the primary rescue staff was killed, different emergency crews trying to find them have been repeatedly struck over a number of hours.
Every week later, 15 bodies were discovered buried within the sand, which OCHA described as a “mass grave.” One PRCS employee stays lacking.
That is “one of many darkest moments on this battle that has shaken our shared humanity to its core,” PRCS President Younes al-Khatib advised the UN Safety Council on Thursday.
Al-Khatib additionally mentioned PRCS dispatchers overheard a dialog in Hebrew between Israeli forces and a few of the help staff, indicating that at the very least some have been nonetheless alive whereas in Israeli custody.
Israel’s navy claimed that 9 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters have been contained in the rescue crews’ ambulances however mentioned it was launching an investigation into the incident.
“The presence of these terrorists places everybody’s lives in danger,” claimed Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
Humanitarian staff have been repeatedly focused through the Gaza warfare, with 408 killed thus far, together with 280 UN employees, in accordance with the UN.
UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk mentioned the help staff’ killing raises “additional issues over the fee of warfare crimes by the Israeli navy”.
Talking at a UN Safety Council assembly in New York, Turk referred to as for an “unbiased, immediate and thorough investigation” into their killing.
“There’s clearly rising consensus inside the council that it should do extra to carry Israel accountable,” experiences Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo from the UN headquarters in New York.
