​​​​​​ISTANBUL

Palestinian Red Crescent workers staged a silent protest Tuesday in Gaza City to denounce Israel’s massacre that killed relief workers, including colleagues, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

They reaffirmed their commitment to their humanitarian mission despite the violence.

The demonstration unfolded outside the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, where protests hoisted signs underscoring the humanitarian nature of their work. They urged the international community to uphold its legal and moral obligations amid continued attacks on medical teams.

Israeli forces killed a team of nine paramedics, five civil defense members, and a UN agency employee on March 23, responding to distress calls from civilians trapped in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, according to Gaza authorities.

On March 27 and 30, officials discovered the bodies of 15 ambulance and firefighting crew members buried 200 meters (656 feet) from where their vehicles stopped.

Fares Afana, the head of ambulance and emergency services at the medical unit, called the killings a “cold-blooded genocide” targeting civil defense and Red Crescent personnel.

“The occupation (Israel) knew full well their humanitarian role,” he told Anadolu.

'Deliberate attack on clearly marked ambulance and civil defense vehicles'

Afana stressed that the Israeli military deliberately targeted clearly marked ambulance and civil defense vehicles, with visible signs and active emergency sirens.

Video evidence from a slain Red Crescent worker’s phone, obtained by The New York Times from a senior UN diplomat who requested anonymity, exposed flaws in the Israeli claims of the incident, Afana added.

Footage showed ambulances and fire trucks bearing clear markings and flashing emergency signals as Israeli forces opened fire.

Afana emphasized the protest is intended to send a global message: “We are humanitarian crews posing no threat.” He demanded immediate action to halt the crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable under international law.

Despite the bloodshed, Afana vowed resilience. “Our mission remains humanitarian. We will persist in our duty to our people and never retreat,” he said.

The Israeli army renewed a deadly assault on Gaza on March 18 and has since killed nearly 1,400 victims, injured more than 3,600 others, and shattered a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in the enclave that was signed in January.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed last week to escalate attacks on Gaza as efforts are underway to implement US President Donald Trump's plan to displace Palestinians from the enclave.

More than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.