14 h. ago The Guardian view on Israel’s killing of paramedics: a new atrocity in an unending conflict | Editorial

Impunity over Palestinian deaths in Gaza will lead to further cases like this massacre of rescue and healthcare workersAfter 18 months of slaughter, it is still possible to be shocked by events in Gaza. More than 50,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities. More are starving because Israel has cut off aid. The offensive is intensifying again – with 100 children killed or maimed each day since Israel resumed heavy strikes last month, the UN reports.Even so, Israel’s killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers is particularly chilling. Though they died on 23 March, it took days for Israel to grant access to the site, the UN said. Another man was last seen in Israeli custody. Two grounds for seeing this not only as tragic but as a war crime stand out. The first is that the UN says the men were shot “one by one”, and a forensic expert said that preliminary evidence “suggests they were executed, not from a distant range”, given the “specific an...

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17 h. ago ‘I heard them take their last breath’: survivor recounts Gaza paramedic killings

Munther Abed, 27, was in the first ambulance on the scene of an airstrike near Rafah when Israeli soldiers opened fire• Gaza paramedic killings: a visual timelineA survivor from a massacre of Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in Gaza has said he saw Israeli troops open fire on a succession of Red Crescent ambulances and rescue vehicles and then use a bulldozer to bury the wreckage in a pit.Munther Abed, a 27-year-old Red Crescent volunteer, was in the back of the first ambulance to arrive on the scene of an airstrike in the Hashashin district of Rafah before dawn on 23 March, when it came under intense Israeli fire. His two Red Crescent colleagues sitting in the front were killed but he survived by throwing himself to the floor of the vehicle. Continue reading...

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45 h. ago Israel executes unarmed Red Crescent paramedics with the west’s blessing | Ahmed Moor

American and European leaders are the authors of this latest atrocity by their Israeli colleagues in GazaThe Guardian reports that Israeli troops “killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one”. “One by one” is another way of saying one person after another, which is another way of saying premeditated murder. Fifteen times over.Dr Bashar Murad, the director of health programs at the Palestine Red Crescent, told reporters that one of the men who was executed by the Israelis was on the phone with colleagues. The victim had been injured and was requesting help. Continue reading...

Politics

61 h. ago Palestinian paramedics shot by Israeli forces had hands tied, eyewitnesses say

Senior doctor who saw bodies says men appeared to have been ‘executed’, adding to evidence of potential war crimeSome of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave nine days ago in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to two eyewitnesses.The eyewitness accounts add to an accumulating body of evidence pointing to a potentially serious war crime on 23 March, when Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance crews and civil defence rescue workers were sent to the scene of an airstrike in the early hours of the morning in the al-Hashashin district of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN

Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian officeFifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces “one by one” and buried in a mass grave eight days ago in southern Gaza, the UN has said.According to the UN humanitarian affairs office (Ocha), the Palestinian Red Crescent and civil defence workers were on a mission to rescue colleagues who had been shot at earlier in the day, when their clearly marked vehicles came under heavy Israeli fire in Rafah city’s Tel al-Sultan. A Red Crescent official in Gaza said that there was evidence of at least one person being detained and killed, as the body of one of the dead had been found with his hands tied. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu repeats threat to seize parts of Gaza if Hamas does not release hostages

Israeli PM says he will take ‘more powerful repression’ if Hamas does not release remaining hostagesFull story: Hundreds join Hamas protest in GazaHere are some of the latest images coming in via the newswires:The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that at least 830 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed large-scale strikes on 18 March, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Israel strikes Damascus 'terror HQ' in bid to kill Palestinian jihadi fighters

Israeli warplanes have hit the 'terror HQ' in neighbouring Syria, warning the new regime there is no place to hide for militants amid fears of a fresh outbreak of war in the Middle East

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