Slaughter of healthcare workers in Gaza continues 

By Dr Angela Skuce, Irish Healthcare Workers for Palestine 

On Monday March 31, 2025, the UN released video footage of the bodies of paramedics and rescue workers being recovered from a mass grave in southern Gaza.    

Their rescue vehicles, clearly marked, and including ambulances and a UN vehicle, had been crushed and buried in the sand alongside them.    

Just over a week ago, 15 men – members of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the Civil Defence, and a UN agency worker – had gone on a mission to Tel al-Sultan refugee camp to rescue colleagues who had been attacked by the Israeli army.   

Those colleagues too, had been travelling in a vehicle clearly marked as a rescue vehicle.   

The video shows men, wearing the red and white uniform of the PCRS, pulling the bodies of their colleagues from a shallow grave – bodies clothed in the same red and white uniforms.   

Some had their surgical gloves on, ready to rescue injured people.   

One had his hands tied behind his back. These paramedics and rescue workers had been killed by the Israeli army, their rescue vehicles driven over by Israeli tanks, and buried by Israeli bulldozers.  

The HQ of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Rafah was hit by an Israeli missile during the same heavy bombardment “despite being clearly marked and notified to all parties.”  

The Red Cross emblem – a red cross on a white ground – is one of the most recognised emblems in the world. It is a symbol of protection, adopted under the Geneva Convention in 1864.  The Red Crescent was similarly adopted in 1929. 

For almost 100 years, these have been the universally recognised signs that in times of armed conflict protect victims  and those who come to their aid.  

These two emblems, along with everything else that signifies healthcare, have been turned into targets by Israel – a hospital, a doctor’s white coat, a nurse’s uniform, an ambulance, a pharmacy.   

Every healthcare facility in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed.   

More than 1,000 healthcare workers in Gaza have been killed.   

Many hundreds have been abducted and are being held without charge in Israeli detention centres, where there are widespread reports of systematic torture and abuse.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiyah, a paediatrician whose dedication and subsequent abduction I wrote about in this paper, remains in detention.   

The Israeli military took him from his hospital 3 months ago. He was held in solitary confinement for 25 days.   

When his lawyer was eventually allowed to see him, she reported that he has been repeatedly interrogated, tortured, and beaten.   

His ribs have been broken, and he has been denied essential medical treatment.  His crime? He refused to leave his patients – children who would have died without care.  

Will we allow this to happen?   

Will we allow Israel to take the Red Cross and its sister the Red Crescent, emblems that kept our forbears safe through 2 World Wars and our own fight for freedom, and turn them into targets?   

Will we, as a country, contribute to Israel’s actions by allowing munitions to pass through or over our land en route to a State that has turned Gaza into the most dangerous place in the world for children?  

On April 2, the Arms Embargo Bill, which would outlaw the carriage of weapons, munitions, or dangerous dual-use goods through Irish airspace to Israel, or to countries that supply Israel with them, passed through the Committee Stage.

It is now moving on to the next stage of the legislative process, and will come up for debate again over the coming months.

It was last debated in May 2024, and deferred for six months which has turned into almost a year.

Please contact all of our senators, and tell them how you feel about Ireland helping to supply the weapons that have blown the legs off more than 1,000 children in Gaza, in the past 18 months.   

Tell them that we want to reclaim the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, to turn them back into symbols that protect us, and to restore International Law.