Were the fifteen care providers in Gaza recognizable enough? “That is the wrong question, Israel should never have shooted ‘

Were the ambulances of the Palestinian red crescent that came to be located at Rafah under Israeli fire on March 23, clearly recognizable as auxiliary vehicles? The care providers say so, Israel does not say so. One word against the other. A stalemate.

But beware, warns the Rotterdam professor of humanitarian studies Thea Hilhorst: it is the wrong question. “According to international humanitarian law, it is crystal clear that you are not allowed to shoot at care providers. There are grounds for exception, but then you still have to be cautious, transparent and proportional action. So it is up to Israel to prove that it was actually about fighters and that there was no other way to eliminate them.”

Sunday, when they had been missing for exactly a week, the bodies of eight missing ambulance staff, six employees of the civil protection of Gaza and one UN employee were found. A ninth ambulance employee is still missing; He may be held by Israeli armed forces.

Seven days unreachable

The sixteen care providers have been unreachable for their colleagues for seven days. In the first five days, Israel denied that colleagues the right to pick up or help the care providers. In an attempt to then reach them, Israeli troops opened fire on civilians in the area. The aid organizations documented that two citizens were shot.

When colleagues from the missing eventually arrived on Saturday, according to Jonathan Whittal, deskchef of the UN organization, they found a “devastating scene” for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCA). “Ambulances, the UN vehicle and the fire truck were crushed and partially buried. After hours of digging we found one body.” The other bodies were found burned on Sunday.

Employees of the Palestinian red crescent who found their colleagues on Sunday, Placed images online From the mass grave with the bodies buried under sand and the crushed, destroyed vehicles. The images are by Osint editors of NRC verified. In one video, posted by UN help organization OCA, you can see how care providers pull the bodies out of the sand. They are all recognizable by their uniform as a care provider.

Monday morning Sanad, the FactCheck group of Nieuwsmedium Al Jazeera, published satellite photos of 25 Marchtwo days after the care providers were missing. The five ambulances and a fire truck can be seen on those photos in the Tal As-Sultan area in Rafah. The vehicles are on the side of a motorway and are surrounded by Israeli tanks from three different sides.

On the satellite image below, taken on March 30, the white box indicates where the bodies were found.

Recognizable emblems

Israel would like to have the discussion about the recognisability of the care providers. The ambulances drove “without coordination and without emergency lighting,” says the Israeli army. According to Israel, soldiers opened fire on ‘suspicious’ vehicles, and Hamas-Miltants were killed. It is not clear whether the army suggests that the killed ambulance brothers and other aid employees for Hamas would compete. Israel says that the victims did not wear recognizable emblems.

According to Hilhorst, Israel calls on “whole batteries of war lawyers” with the aim of advising the country how the exceptions in international law can be stretched. “According to Israeli standards, for example, ten civilian casualties may already fall if one Hamas sympathizant can be eliminated, whereby the concept of ‘sympathizer’ is also stretched to the maximum.”

International law uses other standards, says Hilhorst. Israel, she says, has stretched the standards for proportionality far. “If we go along with that frame, we will actually discuss whether they were visible as ambulance staff, and whether a stain is not visible on a photo that can be regarded as a Hamas warrior.”

In reality, Israel should not even have been allowed to fire on the care providers if the highest Hamas boss was in their midst, says Hilhorst. “Because then they should have demonstrated why they could not arrest him instead of shooting. Because of this war it threatens to become the new normal that you put entire residential areas to kill an enemy.”

Worrying trend

The shooting of the ambulance staff is the latest example of a worrying trend that also identify other aid organizations: the coordination between the army and care providers has stopped. For the ceasefire in Gaza there was a system in which care providers informed the army where they were active, so that they could avoid Israeli attacks. Since the resumption of the war, that system is no longer in operation, say aid organizations to the Financial Times.

For example, Save the Children has stopped 80 percent of his activities in Gaza because Israel no longer recognizes the notifications that the organization provides through the ‘Humanitarian Notification Service Platform’, which is managed by the UN. That platform, says humanitarian director Rachael Cummings of Save the Children to the British newspaper, “was meant to help Israel in fact not to attack us.” Without that system, she says, her organization can no longer guarantee the safety of her teams.

Israel acknowledges that it no longer uses the coordination system; The situation would be viewed at a time. UN and other aid organizations say that the Israelis reject most of the requests for help.

With the cooperation of Lotje van den Dungen

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