The Red Cross federation voiced outrage on Sunday after eight medical colleagues were killed while on duty in the Gaza Strip.

The world’s largest humanitarian network said in a statement: “The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies [IFRC] is outraged at the deaths of eight medics from PRCS [Palestine Red Crescent Society], killed on duty in Gaza.”

The IFRC said the bodies were retrieved after “seven days of silence” and of having access denied to the area of Rafah where they were last seen. It said it was the single most deadly attack on its colleagues anywhere in the world since 2017.

Israel’s military admitted on Saturday it had fired on ambulances in the Gaza Strip after identifying them as “suspicious vehicles”, with Hamas condemning it as a war crime.

“I am heartbroken,” IFRC secretary general Jagan Chapagain said in a statement. “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. They should have returned to their families; they did not.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said earlier on Sunday it had recovered the bodies of the medics, killed a week ago, and that they were found along with those of six members of Gaza’s civil defence agency and one UN agency employee. One Red Crescent ambulance officer remains missing.

On Saturday, the IDF said in a statement to Agence France-Presse that Israeli troops had “opened fire toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists”.

“A few minutes afterward, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops … The troops responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.”

It added that “after an initial inquiry, it was determined that some of the suspicious vehicles … were ambulances and fire trucks”, and condemned what it claimed was “the repeated use” by “terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes”.

The incident occurred in Rafah city’s Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood just days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the area close to the Egyptian border. The military resumed its wider bombardments of Gaza on 18 March, breaking a ceasefire that had lasted almost two months.

Chapagain stressed that under international humanitarian law, civilians, humanitarians and health services must be protected. “Instead of another call on all parties to protect and respect humanitarians and civilians, I pose a question: when will this stop? All parties must stop the killing,” he said.

The number of PRCS volunteers and staff killed since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023 is now 30, the global federation said.

With Agence France-Presse