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Red Cross outraged over killing of medics by Israeli forces in Gaza
The Red Cross movement has expressed outrage that eight Palestinian medics were killed along with six Civil Defence first responders and a UN staff member by Israeli forces in southern Gaza.
Five ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle were struck “one by one” in the al-Hashashin area on 23 March, according to a UN official. The 15 bodies were recovered from a “mass grave” on Sunday, he said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said a ninth medic was missing and accused Israel of targeting staff.
Israel’s military said troops fired on vehicles “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals. It said a Hamas operative and “eight other terrorists” were among those killed.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement on Sunday that the eight bodies of PRCS medics were retrieved “after seven days of silence and having access denied to the area of Rafah where they were last seen”.
The organisation identified those killed as ambulance officers Mostafa Khufaga, Saleh Muamer and Ezzedine Shaath, and first responder volunteers Mohammad Bahloul, Mohammed al-Heila, Ashraf Abu Labda, Raed al-Sharif and Rifatt Radwan.
It added that ambulance officer Assad al-Nassasra was “still missing”.
“I am heartbroken. These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people. They were humanitarians,” IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain said.
“They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked.
“Even in the most complex conflict zones, there are rules. These rules of International Humanitarian Law could not be clearer – civilians must be protected; humanitarians must be protected. Health services must be protected.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a separate statement that it was “appalled” that the medics were killed while carrying out their work.
The head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, Jonathan Whittall, said in a post on X on Sunday that its staff had supported the PRCS and Civil Defence in recovering the 15 bodies of the PRCS medics, Civil Defence first responders and UN staff member from “a mass grave… that was marked with the emergency light from one of their crushed ambulances”.
In a video that was posted online on Monday, Mr Whittall said: “Seven days ago, Civil Defence and PRCS ambulances arrived at the scene. One by one they were hit, they were struck. Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave. We’re digging them out with uniforms, with their gloves on. They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave.”
“Their vehicles… are crushed and dumped, covered in sand next to us. It’s an absolute horror what has happened here. This should never happen. Healthcare workers should never be a target.”
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, said the UN staff member was one of its employees and that the burial of the bodies in “shallow graves” was “a profound violation of human dignity”.
The PRCS said it was devastated by the “massacre of our team”.
“[Israel’s] targeting of Red Crescent medics, despite the protected status of their mission and the Red Crescent emblem can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law,” a statement added.
At the funeral for the medics on Monday, the father of Ashraf Abu Labda told the BBC: “They [Israeli troops] targeted the first vehicle, then the second and then the third. They killed them in cold blood.”
“We’ve been trying to look for them for eight days. They refused all co-ordination with Red Crescent, OCHA, or the UN. No-one can hold them accountable. Only God,” Nasser Abu Labda said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that during an operation in southern Gaza on 23 March “several vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights, or emergency signals, their movement was not co-ordinated in advance. Thus, IDF troops opened fire at the suspected vehicles.”
“Following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military operative, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad],” it added.
“Following the strike, the IDF co-ordinated with international organisations to facilitate the evacuation of the bodies.”
A previous IDF statement about the incident said an initial inquiry had determined that “some of the suspicious vehicles that were moving towards the troops were ambulances and fire trucks”. It also condemned what it called the “repeated use of civilian infrastructure by terrorist organisations”.
The IDF has not commented on the whereabouts of the missing PRCS medic. The OCHA said it was not clear if he was dead, had been detained or something else had happened.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim condemned the attack.
“The targeted killing of rescue workers – who are protected under international humanitarian law – constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” he said.
OCHA spokeswoman Olga Cherevko said there needed to be a full investigation to establish exactly what happened.
“They were aid workers in clearly marked vehicles, so this is why it’s obviously important to get to the bottom of it and get all the facts,” she told the BBC.
When asked about the IDF statements that Hamas and PIJ members had been killed, she said: “There are certain rules that all wars have, and this is why all parties to the conflict have to, obviously, abide by these rules. And this is what we’ve always said… But that doesn’t negate the fact that humanitarian aid workers and emergency responders shouldn’t be targeted.”
The incident in al-Hashashin happened on the same day that the IDF announced that its troops had encircled the nearby Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah and raided what it said was a Hamas command-and-control centre there.
On Monday, the IDF issued a sweeping new evacuation order for the entire Rafah region, telling all residents to head towards the nearby al-Mawasi humanitarian zone for their safety.
The IDF’s Arabic spokesperson warned that it was “returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terrorist organizations in these areas”.
Israel launched its first major operation in Rafah last May, leaving large parts of it in ruins. However, tens of thousands of people returned to what was left of their homes in the city during the recent two-month-long ceasefire.
Israel renewed its aerial bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza on 18 March after the first phase of the ceasefire deal came to an end and negotiations on a second phase of the deal stalled.
At least 1,001 people have since been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 back to Gaza as hostages.
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response, during which more than 50,350 people have been killed, the Gaza health ministry says.
[BBC]
A tiny possum with one extra-long finger on each hand is one of two species thought to have been extinct that have been discovered in West Papua, in what’s been called an “exceptional” scientific discovery.
The other is a a ring-tailed glider with a tail that can grasp branches. Both have been found living in remote rainforests after they were thought to have disappeared 6,000 years ago.
Finding living examples of a lost species is rare, but discovering two is “remarkable,” say scientists who published their findings in the Records of the Australian Museum journal on Friday.
Such discoveries are known as “lazarus taxon”, a term inspired by a biblical figure who was raised from the dead.
“The discovery of one lazarus taxon… is an exceptional discovery,” said Prof Tim Flannery, a prominent Australian scientist best known for his 2005 The Weather Makers book about climate change.
“But the discovery of two species, thought to have been extinct for thousands of years, is remarkable.”
The first rediscovered species was the pygmy long-fingered possum, a striped marsupial weighing about 200g, which is understood to have vanished from Australia during the Ice Age.
A distinguishing feature is that on each hand, the possum’s fourth finger is twice the length of other digits, which scientists say help it dig out wood-boring insect larvae, it’s main source of food.
The second species is the ring-tailed glider, and just like its Australian cousin the greater glider, it lives in the hollows of tall trees.
The discoveries were made by piecing together parts of a puzzle with scientists combing through decades-old fossils, rare photos and old specimens to gather clues before making visits to remote New Guinea locations.
Flannery, along with another of the paper’s co-authors Prof Kris Helgen and researchers from the University of Papau, spoke to local elders from the Tambrauw and Maybrat clans – some of whom have only had contact with the modern world since the 1960s.
Identification of the species would not have been possible without their help, according to Rika Korain, a Maybrat woman and another co-author.
“They’re very traditional people,” Flannery added, and regard the glider as so sacred that “not only won’t they hunt it, they won’t mention its name”.
But the gliders habitat was increasingly coming under threat from logging in the area, Flannery said.
This, in part, has prompted efforts by scientists and wildlife groups to try secure native title for the forests to ensure logging cannot be carried out without consent from locals, he said.
(BBC)
The death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon this week has risen to at least 123 people, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health says, as a new wave of strikes pounded the country and Hezbollah warned Israeli residents to evacuate towns within 5km (3 miles) of their northern border, in one of the fiercest fronts in the wider United States – Israel war on Iran.
“The toll from the Israeli aggression on Monday, increased to 123 martyrs and 683 wounded,” a ministry statement said on Thursday.
Lebanese state media said early on Friday that Israel had launched air strikes on several towns in southern Lebanon.
“Enemy warplanes launched nighttime strikes on the towns of Srifa, Aita al-Shaab, Touline, as-Sawana and Majdal Selem,” the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Another strike hit the eastern Lebanese town of Douris at dawn, the NNA said.
The Israeli army also reported a new attack on the suburb of Dahiyeh in Beirut.
It has also continued attacks in southern Lebanon with raids on the area’s biggest city Sidon, according to sources on the ground.
NNA also reported Israeli warplanes over the southern towns of Tyre and Bint Jbeil.
(Aljazeera)
Hungary’s tax authority has said it has arrested seven Ukrainians and two cash-transport vehicles on suspicion of money-laundering after Ukraine’s foreign minister accused Budapest of taking them hostage.
“The reasons are still unknown, as well as their current well-being,” Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. “We have already sent an official note demanding an immediate release of our citizens.”
According to Ukraine’s state savings bank, Oschadbank, the seven workers were in two vans carrying $80m (£60m) worth of cash and 9kg of gold in a regular transport between Austria and Ukraine. They were “unjustifiably detained” and GPS data showed their vehicles in Budapest, it said.
Hungary’s tax authority said on Friday that it was conducting criminal proceedings and added that one of the group was a former general of Ukraine’s intelligence service.
(BBC)
Tiny possum and glider thought extinct for 6,000 years found in remote West Papua
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Cost to US for war on Iran is $3.7bn in first 100 hours, says think tank
More than 120 killed in Israel’s Lebanon attacks as Beirut, south, east hit
Hungary confirms it is holding seven Ukrainian bank workers and $80m
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