The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) yesterday welcomed a delegation from the British government at its headquarters in Al-Bireh. The visit aimed to assess PRCS’s humanitarian response in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The delegation was led by the UK Minister for Development, Baroness Jenny Chapman, accompanied by her aide and the British Consul General in Jerusalem, Ms. Helen Winterton.
„I can prove that nobody has received (aid). No civilian has received anything yet. In fact, say most of these trucks are still in Karem Shalom at the border, inspected, but not into Gaza,“ Younis Al-Khatib, President of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, told reporters.
(April 15, 2025)
The New York Times obtained autopsy reports for 14 of the 15 people killed in a March 23 attack on an ambulance and fire truck.
Fourteen emergency workers and a UN worker were killed on 23 March after a convoy of Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances, a UN car and a fire truck came under fire by the Israeli military.
In a statement, the IDF said its troops opened fire believing they were facing a threat from enemy forces.
The IDF said its investigation found six of the casualties were Hamas members, and rejected that there had been summary executions.
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It blamed „poor night visibility“, which the IDF said meant the commander did not identify the vehicles as ambulances.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) affirms that the targeting of its ambulance convoy by Israeli forces in the Al-Hashasheen area of Rafah on March 23 constitutes a full-fledged war crime, and it reflects a dangerous pattern of repeated violation of international humanitarian law. This massacre claimed the lives of eight members of the PRCS emergency medical teams: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz Al-DeenShath, Saleh Muammar, Rifaat Radwan, Mohammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Labda, Mohammad Al-Heela, and Raed Al-Sharif. The fate of medic Asaad Al-Nassasrah remains unknown to this day. We therefore call on the occupying authorities to immediately disclose his whereabouts. Video footage, documented by our late colleague and medic Rifaat Radwan, shows the final moments of the team as they drove clearly marked ambulances with flashing emergency lights toward the site where the first ambulance had been targeted. Despite the clear identification of the vehicles and teams, the convoy came under heavy gunfire for approximately five minutes, as shown in the published footage. Furthermore, communication between the team and the Central Dispatch Center confirms that the gunfire continued for no less than two hours, with continuous shooting heard until contact was completely lost with one of the medics. PRCS affirms that this was neither a random incident nor an individual error, but rather a series of deliberate attacks. The first was the shooting of an ambulance en route to evacuate casualties after a home was bombed in the Al-Hashasheen area.
The President of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Dr. Younis Al-Khatib told reporters in New York that he had presented audiovisual evidence and had urged the Security Council “to support the call for an independent and thorough investigation” following the discovery of the bodies of eight missing medics from the PRCS in a mass grave in Gaza.
According to the he International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) an emergency medical team of nine disappeared along with their ambulances after they came under heavy fire in Al-Hashashin on 23 March. After seven days, the bodies of ambulance officers Mostafa Khufaga, Saleh Muamer and Ezzedine Shaath and first responder volunteers Mohammad Bahloul, Mohammed Al-Heila, Ashraf Abu Labda, Raed Al Sharif and Rifatt Radwan were retrieved. Ambulance officer Assad Al-Nassasra is still missing.