By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-31 23:31:35 | Updated at 2025-04-02 11:05:36
1 day ago
Fifteen emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, Palestinian Civil Defence and the United Nations have been recovered from a grave in the sand in the south of Gaza, UN officials said on Monday.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said in a post on social media that the bodies were buried near “wrecked & well-marked vehicles”, adding: “They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives. We demand answers & justice.”
Israel’s military did not comment directly on the deaths of the aid workers.
In a later statement to Reuters, it said that it had facilitated the evacuation of the bodies from the area, which it described as an active combat zone.
The military did not specifically respond to questions about why the bodies were retrieved beneath the sand nor why the vehicles were found crushed.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said on social media that the bodies had been “discarded in shallow graves – a profound violation of human dignity”.
