‘Full-fledged war crime’: Hamas slams Israeli strike on civil defense teams in Rafah

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has strongly condemned the Israeli military’s attacks on Palestinian Civil Defense teams and paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, calling the assaults a “full-fledged war crime.”

The Gaza-based resistance group, in a statement on Friday, said the recent discovery of the bodies of 15 first responders, found buried in sand next to their destroyed vehicles in the Tel al-Sultan and al-Baraksat neighborhoods of Rafah days after losing contact with them, exposes the extent of the atrocity committed during the latest Israeli assault.

The movement stressed that the deliberate targeting of emergency workers while performing their humanitarian duties represents one of the most egregious violations of the laws of war and forms part of the Zionist regime’s ongoing attacks against civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“The Israeli war machine recognizes no limits to its brutality,” the statement read.

Hamas denounced what it described as international silence in the face of such crimes, terming this inaction as unacceptable complicity.

It held the international community historically accountable for failing to stop what it labeled a campaign of systematic extermination.

The movement also called on the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and international humanitarian organizations, particularly the International Committee of the Red Cross, to take urgent action to launch an international investigation into the latest Israeli atrocity.

On Thursday evening, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, in collaboration with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), entered the Tel Sultan neighborhood and retrieved the remains of a Civil Defense medic from among the nine personnel who were unaccounted for.

According to reports from Civil Defense, the team that arrived in Tel Sultan was taken aback upon discovering the dismembered remains of their mission leader, Anwar Abdel Hamid al-Attar.

Israeli military admits to firing on ambulances in Gaza

Israel

‘The reports added that they also found the Civil Defense ambulances and fire trucks, along with Palestinian Red Crescent Society vehicles, “completely destroyed by Israeli strikes,” noting that “safety gear worn by the team was discovered torn apart, suggesting that Israeli forces directly targeted them before using bulldozers and heavy machinery to conceal bodies.”

Five Civil Defense personnel remain missing in Tel Sultan, it said.

On Sunday, the Israeli military carried out an extensive ground and aerial offensive in the neighborhood, resulting in civilian casualties and injuries, while also trapping thousands of individuals, including medical personnel and rescue teams.

At the time, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that it had lost communication with its staff after Israeli forces surrounded them during their efforts to evacuate individuals affected by air and artillery bombardments in Rafah.

The Israeli army launched a surprise aerial campaign on the Gaza Strip on March 18, killing 855 people, injuring nearly 1,900 others, and shattering the ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian group Hamas and the deal on the exchange of Israeli captives for Palestinian abductees.

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 50,251 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and another 114,025 individuals injured in the brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023.

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