Bodies of aid workers found in mass grave in Gaza

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

The bodies of more than a dozen aid workers have been found in southern Gaza from what the United Nations agency described as a "mass grave", a week after they went missing following an attack by Israeli forces.

Eight of the 14 bodies recovered on Sunday from a site in the southern Rafah area were identified as members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), five as civil protection workers and one as a staff member of a UN agency, the PRCS said in a statement.

One PRCS medic remains missing.

The body of a 15th person, a civil protection worker, was found from the site last Thursday, after the PRCS said they were initially denied access to the area.

Last week, the PRCS said nine of its emergency medical technicians had been missing since March 23 after an incident in which Israeli forces fired on ambulances and fire engines in southern Rafah.

In response to the initial incident, the Israeli military said it had fired on the ambulances and fire engines because they were being used as cover by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Aid agencies and the UN expressed outrage at the attack, which the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said was the “deadliest” for IFRC workers in almost a decade.

“This massacre of our team is a tragedy, not only for us at the Palestine Red Crescent Society, but also for humanitarian work and humanity,” the PCRS said in a statement, calling “the targeting of medics a war crime punishable under international law.”