Gaza medic detained during deadly Israeli attack released, Red Crescent says

The Israeli military has released a Palestinian paramedic detained when Israeli troops killed 15 other emergency workers in southern Gaza last month, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.

Assad al-Nassasra was missing for three weeks until the International Committee of the Red Cross received information he was in Israeli detention.

He was reportedly one of 10 detainees freed at an Israeli border crossing with Gaza on Tuesday.

The Israeli military has not commented. But it had confirmed it was holding Mr Nassasra during a briefing on an internal inquiry into the attack, which identified "several professional failures".

The PRCS denounced the findings as an attempt to justify a "war crime".

Eight PRCS paramedics, six first responders from Gaza's Civil Defence agency, and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) were killed when their ambulances, a fire engine and a UN vehicle came under fire in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah during an emergency call-out early on 23 March.

Their bodies were found buried in shallow graves a week later next to the crushed vehicles.

One other PRCS paramedic survived and said he was released by Israeli forces after being detained alongside Mr Nassasra.

The Israeli military initially said its troops fired on "suspicious vehicles" driving in darkness with their headlights and emergency lights off.

But it later said that account was "mistaken" after a video found on the mobile phone of one of the dead paramedics - Rifaat Radwan, who was in the same ambulance as Mr Nassasra - showed the convoy was using its emergency lights.

At the end of the video, the ambulances are seen having pulled over on the roadside. The sound of gunfire can then be heard just as Radwan gets out of his ambulance. It continues for more than five minutes and Radwan is heard saying his last prayers, before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching.

On 20 April, the military released a summary of its internal inquiry which said the shooting of the 14 PRCS and Civil Defence workers resulted from "an operational misunderstanding" by troops from a reconnaissance battalion "who believed they faced a tangible threat".

It found the killing of the Unrwa employee meanwhile "involved a breach of orders during a combat setting".

The military said the deputy commander of the reconnaissance battalion was dismissed "due to his responsibilities as the field commander in this incident and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief".

The PRCS condemned the report, saying it was evidence of what it called Israel's "policy of systemic distortion of the truth" to protect its soldiers from accountability.

"The results of the occupation's investigation hold the usual fallacious allegations of rescue teams in Gaza being part of Hamas in order to justify the war crime of targeting medical missions in general, and the war crime of attacking teams and vehicles carrying the protected emblems of the Geneva Conventions in particular," it said.

A senior UN humanitarian official in Gaza warned "a lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place".

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 52,365 people have been killed in Gaza during the ensuing war, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

The ministry says more than 2,270 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is still holding.

Palestinian media reported on Tuesday that at least six people were killed in Israeli air and artillery strikes across Gaza City, in the north, including three in the al-Shaaf area.

Another four people were said to have been killed in strikes on tents housing displaced people in the southern al-Mawasi area, near the city of Khan Younis.

Israel has also blocked all deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies to Gaza since 2 March, which the UN says has caused severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

On Tuesday, the UN's human rights chief urged the world to "prevent the total collapse of critical life-saving support in Gaza".

"Any use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of war constitutes a war crime, and so do all forms of collective punishment," Volker Türk warned.

The UN has said Israel is obliged under international law to ensure supplies for the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza.

But Israel has said it is complying with international law and that there is no shortage of aid because 25,000 lorry loads entered Gaza during the recent ceasefire. It has also accused Hamas of stealing supplies, which the group has denied.