Asia Pacific Report
Health workers spoke out at a rally condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the latest atrocity against Palestinian aid workers today, calling on the New Zealand government to join global demands for an independent investigation.
They were protesting over last month’s massacre of 15 Palestinian rescue workers and the destruction of their ambulances in Gaza’s Rafah district under heavy fire.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has called for an independent international inquiry into the “deliberate killing” of 8 ambulance medics, 6 civil defence workers and 1 UN worker reportedly executed by the Israeli forces on March 23.
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Their ambulances were destroyed and buried together with the bodies of the victims in a shallow grave a week after the crews went missing.
One PRCS paramedic, Assaad al-Nassasra, was reported to be still missing.
Among the speakers in the rally in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square, Amnesty International’s Audrey Van Ryn said: “These killings must be independently and impartially investigated and the perpetrators held to account.
“Medical personnel carrying out their humanitarian duties most be respected and protected in all circumstances.”
Health worker Jason Brooke read out a message from the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Jagan Chapagain, in response to the killing of the Palestinian first-responders.
‘Their ambulances were clearly marked’
“I am heartbroken. These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people. They were humanitarians. They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked,” said Chapagain.
“They should have returned to their families; they did not.”
Their bodies were discovered a week later by fellow workers. A video from one of the slain Palestinian Red Crescent medics contradicting the lies propagated by Israel’s military that the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously toward IDF [Israeli Defence Force] troops without headlights or emergency signals”
These first responders were not mistakenly misidentified. They were travelling, clearly visible in red crescent marked ambulances with their lights on. They posed no threat.
According to the United Nations, at least 1060 healthcare workers have been killed in the 18 months since Israel launched its genocidal offensive in Gaza.
“Whether it’s first-responders and medics, health workers or reporters, not only are these workers being targeted with impunity by the IOF, but their deaths seem to barely cause a ripple,” said Brooke, who was greeted with cries of shame.
“Where is the condemnation of our politicians? Our media?”
‘Dehumanisation of Palestinian life’
“As the Palestinian poet and author Mohammed El-Kurd suggests, what we are witnessing is the dehumanisation of Palestinian life.
“Israel only has to mention the word ‘Hamas’ and the indoctrinated look-away. As if resistance to genocide itself were a crime — the punishment a life predetermined for death.
“Genocide does not distinguish between civilian, aid worker, health worker, reporter and militant. All are condemned.”
Medical personnel, medical transport, hospitals and other medical facilities, the injured and sick are all specifically protected under international humanitarian law.
The devastating Gaza massacre represents the single most deadly attack on Red Cross or Red Crescent workers anywhere in the world since 2017.
Secretary-general Chapagain said: “The number of Palestine Red Crescent volunteers and staff killed since the start of this conflict is now 30.
“We stand with Palestine Red Crescent and the loved ones of those killed on this darkest of days.”
‘Palestine wants freedom to live’
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) advocate Janfrie Wakim called on the crowd to give each other “high fives” in recognition of their solidarity in turning up for the protest in the 79th week since the war began.
“I like the sign in front of me: ‘Palestine wants the freedom to live while Israel has the freedom to kill!’ she said.
“We mourn those thousands of innocent people — some with families here and in Gaza and the West Bank — who made the ultimate sacrifice with their lives, and the thousands unaccounted for in rubble and over 100,000 injured.
“Mostly women and children.
“The humanitarian workers who have been murdered serving humanity.”
Wakim said the genocide had been enabled by the wealthiest countries in the world and Western media — “including our own with few exceptions”.
“Without its lies, its deflections, its failure to report the agonising reality of Palestinians suffering, Israel would not have been able to commit its atrocities.”
All fatalities women and children
Meanwhile, the United Nations reports Palestinian women and children were the only fatalities in at least three dozen Israeli air strikes on Gaza since mid-March, as it warned that Israel’s military offensive threatened Palestinians’ “continued existence as a group”.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Friday that the office had documented 224 Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for displaced people in the Gaza Strip between March 18 and April 9.
“In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children,” she said.
The findings come as Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed more than 1500 Palestinians since the Israeli military broke a ceasefire in March, according to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reports Al Jazeera.
A German official was the latest to call for an independent probe over Israel’s killing of the 15 medical aid workers.
An investigation into Israel’s killing of paramedics must be carried out independently, said German Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Assistance Luise Amtsberg.
“This alleged violation of international law must not go unpunished,” Amtsberg said in a message on social media platform Bluesky.
Israel’s ‘distortion’ straining ties
“The investigation must be carried out quickly and independently, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice as soon as possible. The Israeli government and judiciary have a duty here,” she said.
Israel’s distortion of the event was “once again” straining ties between Germany and Israel, she added.
Myriam Laaroussi, an emergency coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, told Al Jazeera from al-Mawasi, an area west of Khan Younis that houses thousands of displaced Gaza families, that the health system had been destroyed.
Due to the Israeli blockade, the supplies needed to treat patients were lacking and had left children in Gaza vulnerable to disease, she said.
The desalination unit was not functioning any more due to Israel’s decision to cut electricity, which had decreased the capacity to retain good hygiene and was leading to outbreaks of polio and scabies.
“We see that it’s a ‘slow death’ for many Palestinians, with shortages of food and water leading to a loss of weight and medical issues,” she said.
The ceasefire had been an opportunity to scale up the capacity of the different health facilities, but it had been too short to have enough effect, and now health facilities were being attacked again.
