GAZA, March 30, 2025 (WAFA) – The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Sunday evening announced the number of the bodies retrieved from Rafah’s Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood rose to 14.
PRCS said in a press release that the number of crew members whose bodies were retrieved from the neighborhood in the southern Gaza Strip jumped to 14 eight days after their fate was unknown in the neighborhood.
It elaborated that the bodies included the bodies of eight PRCS paramedics, the bodies of five rescue team members, and the body of one United Nations staff member, all of whom went missing and whose fate was unknown after Israeli occupation forces had directly opened gunfire at them in the neighborhood.
It added that the bodies were located thanks to the joint efforts of its rescue teams together with a crew of OCHA, the Red Cross, and the Civil Defense, who made their way to the neighborhood in search of the missing crew members and continued to search for other bodies.
As part of the 14 bodies, the PRCS said that eight bodies out of nine paramedics were located eight days after contact with them was lost as a result of coming under intense gunfire while in Rafah’s al-Hashashin, noting that the ninth paramedic, identified as Assad Nasasra, was still missing and might have been detained by the occupation forces.
It said that it was difficult to retrieve their bodies since they were buried in sand and some of them had started to decompose.
The eight PRCS paramedics were identified as Mustafa Khafaja, Izziddin Shaath, Saleh Mu‘amar, Rifat Radwan, Mohammad Bahlul, Ashraf Abu Libdeh, Mohammad al-Hila and Raed ash-Sharif.
The gunfire in Rafah city's Tal al-Sultan neighborhood came just days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the southern area, close to the Egyptian border after Israel unilaterally ended the ceasefire agreement and resumed its bombardments of Gaza on 18 March.
Earlier this afternoon, PRCS President Younes Al-Khatib said that the fate of the crew members was still unknown after Israeli occupation forces had directly opened gunfire at and injured them in the neighborhood.
The gunfire in Rafah city's Tal al-Sultan neighborhood came just days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the southern area, close to the Egyptian border after Israel unilaterally ended the ceasefire agreement and resumed its bombardments of Gaza on 18 March.
K.F.
