Israel frees Gaza medic detained since ambulance attack: Red Crescent

Khaleej Times

29-04-2025

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Israel released from detention on Tuesday a medic held since a deadly attack on ambulances in southern Gaza on March 23.
"The occupation forces have just released medic Asaad Al Nsasrah, who was detained on March 23, 2025, while performing his humanitarian duty during the massacre of medical teams in the Tal Al Sultan area of Rafah Governorate", the PRCS said in a statement.
Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in the attack by Israeli forces, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA.
The killings sparked international condemnation, including concern about possible "war crimes" from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.
The PRCS said weeks after the incident that Nsasrah was in Israeli custody after being "forcibly abducted" when Israeli soldiers had opened fire on the ambulances.
An Israeli military investigation released this month "found no evidence to support claims of execution" or "indiscriminate fire" by its troops, but admitted to operational failures and said it was firing a field commander.
It said six of those killed were militants, revising an earlier claim that nine were fighters.
The PRCS and Gaza's civil defence agency rejected those findings, with the PRCS denouncing the report as "full of lies".
The medics and other rescue workers were killed when responding to distress calls near Gaza's southern city of Rafah on March 23, days into Israel's renewed offensive in the Hamas-run territory.
Their bodies were found about a week later, buried in the sand alongside their crushed vehicles near the shooting scene. OCHA described it as a mass grave.
Days later, the army said its soldiers fired on "terrorists" approaching them in "suspicious vehicles", with a spokesman later adding that the vehicles had their lights off.
But a video recovered from the cellphone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account.
The footage shows ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing.
In its probe, the military acknowledged operational failure on the part of its troops to fully report the incident, but reiterated their earlier statements that Israeli troops buried the bodies and vehicles "to prevent further harm".