The killing of 15 aid workers in Gaza; an unprecedented crime in modern history

The international community must hold the Zionist regime’s officials and those responsible accountable for the deliberate killing of 15 aid workers from the Palestine Red Crescent and Civil Defense.

The victims, whom the Zionist regime’s army killed in Rafah, also include a staff member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). This killing is part of the Zionist regime’s widespread and systematic attacks on humanitarian, medical and UN workers, all of whom are protected by international law.

According to field evidence, the Zionist military killed 8 Palestine Red Crescent aid workers, 5 Civil Defense workers and an UNRWA worker. All were on duty at the time of the targeting.

This crime is considered the largest mass killing of humanitarian workers in the history of modern warfare.

After the complete destruction of the workers’ vehicles, most of their bodies were subsequently buried in a deep pit that was then filled with sand. This horrific scene is further evidence of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and is a major crime that constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

This crime is just one in a series of deliberate attacks against humanitarian and medical workers since October 7, 2023. Since then, the Zionist regime has martyred more than 1,400 medical workers, 27 Red Crescent aid workers, and 111 aid workers from mobile aid organizations as part of a systematic campaign to destroy the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

A Palestine Red Crescent ambulance left the Al-Hashish neighborhood of Rafah on the morning of Sunday, March 23, 2025 to evacuate the wounded who had been hit by the Israeli attacks. However, the medical staff inside the ambulance were injured by heavy fire from the occupying forces. As the situation worsened, three more ambulances were dispatched to evacuate the wounded, including the crew members injured in the initial attack. The area then suddenly came under a tight Israeli siege, from which all communication with the medical staff was cut off.

On the same day, a civil defense relief team in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah received urgent calls to be dispatched to the Al-Hashish area. The calls stated that the Israeli forces had unexpectedly attacked the area, killing and wounding dozens of people and trapping medical staff. Although a team of six local aid workers was dispatched in response to the calls, contact with the team was lost soon after.

One of the aid workers was severely beaten by the occupying forces; he was released later that evening. Other workers, including one UNRWA worker, five local aid workers and eight Red Crescent aid workers, were killed.

Additional emergency and civil defense personnel were able to reach the scene on Friday, 28 March after international coordination, and discovered the dismembered body of the mission’s head of civil defense, Anwar Abdulhamid Al-Attar. The aid teams that arrived on Friday also found that all Red Crescent vehicles, fire engines and ambulances had been reduced to charred metal.

Despite enjoying international humanitarian law protection, the aid workers were directly targeted. Furthermore, evidence shows that the Israeli occupation forces not only martyred the victims, but also hid their crime by using bulldozers and other large equipment to bury the bodies in a mass grave.

The bodies of eight Red Crescent aid workers were discovered on Sunday, March 30 coinciding with the first day of Eid al-Fitr. One of the victims is still missing and is believed to be in Israeli military custody. The bodies of an UNRWA employee and five Gaza Civil Defense personnel were also discovered on March 30.

The statements of the Civil Defense personnel, recorded by the human rights organization Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, indicate that the Israeli military brutally tortured and then killed them.

Some of the victims were handcuffed when their bodies were discovered; some of the bodies bore signs of torture, and in one case, the body of the aid worker was found to have been shot 20 times.

These statements confirm that the Zionist soldiers forcibly removed the victims from their vehicles, killed them in cold blood, and then buried them to hide any evidence of the crime.