The Palestinian Red Crescent said it has so far found 15 dead rescue workers following an Israeli attack on an ambulance in the southern Gaza Strip a week ago.
"To date, the death toll has risen to 15, of whom eight were pulled from a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, six were members of the Civil Protection team and one was an employee of a United Nations agency," the organization said in a new tally of bodies recovered.
They are talking about Red Crescent teams whose fate has been unknown since Israeli soldiers targeted an ambulance on March 23rd.
"The Palestine Red Crescent is devastated by the killing of eight of its rescue workers in Rafah, in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in the west of the city," the organization said in a statement, adding that they were targeted by the Israeli occupation while carrying out "their humanitarian mission."
The organization added that one of its rescuers was still missing. The Israeli military admitted on Saturday that it had fired on ambulances in the Gaza Strip, after deeming the vehicles "suspicious."
The Israeli army resumed its offensive on Rafah on March 20, two days after resuming airstrikes on Palestinian territory following a two-month ceasefire.
The Red Crescent said Israeli authorities were preventing the team from entering Tal al-Sultan to search for members of their rescue team who are still missing.
The Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Jagan Champaign, said he was heartbroken and that the people in the ambulance were wearing protective gear, that their vehicle was clearly marked and that they were humanitarian workers.
"They should have returned to their families, but they didn't," he added.
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