The Palestinian Red Crescent, which lost nine of its employees during the Israeli attack on March 23, called the murders one of the “darkest moments” of the war.
New evidence suggests that some of the 15 Palestinian humanitarian workers killed by Israeli forces in Rafah last week were turned at close range in what seemed to be murders of Execution style – an attack that Palestine Croiscent Society (PRC) described as “one of the darkest moments of the war.
Medical analyst Ahmad Dhaher, who personally examined five of the Nasser hospital bodies in Khan Younis, said the evidence indicated gunshots near the scope.
“The preliminary analysis suggests that they were executed, not at a distant scope, because the locations of the ball injury were specific and intentional,” Dhaher told the Guardian newspaper.
“An observation is that the bullets were targeting a person’s head, another in their hearts and that a third person had been shot dead with six or seven balls in the chest.”
He warned that the decomposition state has made it difficult to draw final conclusions.
The humanitarian workers disappeared on March 23 during a rescue mission in the Tal Astulan district of Rafah after being attacked by Israeli forces. The group included nine PRCS doctors, six civil defense workers and a United Nations employee.
According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination (OCHA), after the death of the first rescue team, other emergency teams that sought them were hit several times for several hours.
A week later, 15 bodies were discovered buried in the sand, which Ocha described as a “mass grave”. A PRCS worker remains missing.
This is “one of the darkest moments of this conflict that shaken our shared humanity to his heart,” the president of the PRCS, Al-Khatib, on the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.
Al-Khatib also said that PRC distributors have heard a conversation in Hebrew between Israeli forces and some of the humanitarian workers, indicating that at least some were still alive when they were in Israeli police custody.
The Israeli army said nine Islamic jihad fighters were inside the ambulances of the rescue teams, but said it launched an investigation into the incident.
“The presence of these terrorists puts life in danger of everyone,” said the ambassador of Israel to the UN Danny Danon.
According to the UN,
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk said that the murder of humanitarian workers increased “other concerns concerning the War Crimes Commission by the Israeli army”.
Speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, Turk called for an “independent, fast and in -depth investigation” on their murder.
“There is clearly an increasing consensus within the council that he must do more to hold responsible Israel,” reports Gabriel Elizondo d’Tel Aviv Tribune from the UN headquarters in New York.
