What we know about the Red Crescent incidents in Gaza

Jagan Chapagain, the secretary general of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), told reporters: “I am heartbroken. These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people. They were humanitarians.

"They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families; they did not.”

However, while the IDF appeared to confirm that soldiers had fired at the first ambulances, it said that it arrived in the wake of a gunfight with terrorists and had been acting suspiciously. 

A military spokesperson told AFP: “[IDF troops] opened fire toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists.

"A few minutes afterward, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops … The troops responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.

"After an initial inquiry, it was determined that some of the suspicious vehicles … were ambulances and fire trucks.”

The spokesperson did not confirm whether the soldiers came under fire from the “suspicious vehicles” but did condemn what it called Hamas’ “repeated use” of ambulances “for terrorist purposes”.

The Israeli account of what happened was not reflected in a large number of reported comments on the incident.

For example, Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), claimed: “Israeli airstrikes in densely populated areas have killed hundreds of children and other civilians.

"Patients killed in their hospital beds. Ambulances shot at. First responders killed.

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

Then, Ocha’s chief in Gaza, Jonathan Whittall, posted photos of bodies being dug out of the sand, claiming that ambulance workers from the later convoy had been buried in a “mass grave”.

According to Al-Jazeera, a further 14 people, including eight Red Crescent Medics, five civil defence workers and a UN employee, were found buried, with the Red Crescent claiming that one had been discovered with their hands bound.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of Unrwa, echoed Whittall’s comments, claiming that the bodies had been “discarded in shallow graves”, calling it “a profound violation of human dignity”.

However, allegations that the workers were directly executed by gunfire or that any of those discovered were bound remain unverified, with some claiming that they may have been fabricated by Hamas. It is also unconfirmed who buried the bodies, despite Whittall claiming that it was the work of an Israeli bulldozer.

Commenting on this development, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, the IDF’s international spokesperson, said: “The IDF did not randomly attack an ambulance on March 23. Let me walk through what happened step-by-step.

“⁠Last Sunday, several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals. IDF troops then opened fire at the suspected vehicles. Earlier that day, cars that did not belong to terrorists were coordinated and passed safely on the same route.

⁠”Following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military operative, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who took part in the October 7 massacre, along with 8 other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”

The army did not comment directly on the accusation of the mass grave, saying only that it had allowed an “evacuation of bodies” in conjunction with international organisations. Shoshani did not clarify what he meant by “uncoordinated vehicles” but aid agencies generally inform the IDF of their staff movements, especially in active combat areas, in order to ensure their safety.

And in an interview with Channel 4 News, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskell said there had been “no such case” of Israel deliberately killing aid workers.

She initially said that she “hadn’t heard about this case” and that “I would be very cautious about making declarative statements as we’ve heard before… many of these statements have been found not just to be fake, but to be Hamas propaganda”.

Haskell cited the fact that Red Crescent personnel had not been allowed into the area to conduct an investigation, suggesting that details of the circumstances around the deaths were coming from Hamas. 

“Almost all this information is coming from the same source, which is Hamas,” she added.

But she later said that “this will be investigated by the Israeli authorities” and suggested that there could also be an independent investigation, similar to the case in which an Israeli drone strike killed World Central Kitchen aid workers last year.

Haskell said that the WCK case had been investigated by an independent military expert sent by the Australian government, who concluded that the deaths had been unintentional, adding that people were “laid off” and procedures changed in the aftermath to prevent similar mistakes in the future.