Israel admits firing at ambulances in Gaza amid reports of missing Red Crescent rescuers

CAIRO – 29 March 2025: Israel's military has acknowledged that it fired upon ambulances and fire trucks in Rafah, southern Gaza, as the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reports that the fate of nine of its staff members remain unknown.

In statements to AFP, the Israeli military said that the shooting incident, which occurred last week in Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood, was directed at what they deemed “suspicious vehicles,” only to later discover they were ambulances and fire trucks.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that Israeli troops executed the first responders and buried their bodies.

On Friday, Gaza's civil defense agency reported discovering the body of the team leader, along with the rescue vehicles—an ambulance and a fire truck. They also stated that a vehicle belonging to the Palestine Red Crescent Society had been "reduced to a pile of scrap metal."

العـــامـلون والمتطوعون في المجــال الإنســــاني ليســـوا هــدفاً❌
Humanitarian workers and volunteers are not a target pic.twitter.com/RWK4iY4Ck9

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) March 22, 2025

The PRCS condemned Israel’s obstruction of the search efforts for the missing crew members, stating that initial reports confirmed the crew came under heavy gunfire from Israeli forces at the time of the incident, resulting in multiple injuries.

The PRCS called on the international community to take concrete steps to ensure the protection of medical personnel.

The Israeli assault in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood began on March 20, just two days after the Israeli army resumed airstrikes on Gaza, shattering a nearly two-month ceasefire.

Attacks on medical personnel, hospitals, and ambulances constitute war crimes.

Hamas condemned the targeting of the PRCS and civil defense teams in Rafah, calling it a "full-fledged war crime and a continuation of blatant violation of international law."

🚨 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. Today, Israeli authorities refused to allow a rescue team to enter the Tel Al-Sultan area to search for the missing… pic.twitter.com/eXwTDO7ahh

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) March 29, 2025

Over the past two weeks, Israel's renewed attacks on Gaza have killed more than 920 people, including hundreds of women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

This brings the total death toll since the onset of the war in 2023 to nearly 50,300.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said the acts of Israeli war in Gaza "bear the hallmarks of atrocity crimes."

“Intensely populated areas hospitals are once again battlegrounds; patients killed in their beds, ambulances shot at, and first responders killed,” Laerke noted.

“If the basic principles of humanitarian law still count, the international community must act while it can to uphold them.”