Meanwhile, on Thursday and again on Saturday, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas militants published disturbing videos of two emaciated Israeli hostages, sparking worldwide outrage and condemnation from UN leaders, including Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday.

The hostages pictured, Rom Braslavsk and Evyatar David, are two of the 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

At Monday’s daily briefing in New York, UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said the Secretary-General “was very shocked by this unacceptable violation of human dignity.”

UN rights chief Volker Türk added in a statement that he was appalled by the humiliating treatment of the hostages. Both he and the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, reiterated their call for an unconditional, immediate release of all hostages still being held since the 7 October terror attacks.

The High Commissioner said the “intolerable” sight of starvation in Gaza served as another reminder that the violence had to end. “Saving lives must be everyone’s priority.”

He called for Israel to immediately allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded aid: “Denying civilians access to food may amount to a war crime, as well as potentially a crime against humanity.”

Attack on aid workers

On Sunday, the Israeli military reportedly struck the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Khan Younis, killing one and injuring three other staff members.  

The facility is marked with the Red Crescent emblem and is thus protected under international humanitarian law.

The UN rights office (OHCHR) in Palestine expressed deep shock and outrage over these killings.

“These workers continue to engage in life-saving efforts putting their own lives at risk,” OHCHR said.

Aid entry  

Amid these controversies, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, posted on social media on Saturday, saying that since Friday, the agency had brought 24 trucks with medical supplies into Gaza.  

Items included essential medicines, trauma and surgery supplies, treatments for non-communicable disease and laboratory and water testing supplies.  

Mr. Haq also highlighted on Monday that in recent days, the UN and its partners have collected wheat flour, ready-to-eat rations and hot meals from crossing points into Gaza, but most of the cargo was taken by the hungry and desperate before reaching intended destinations.

Additionally, hygiene kits and nutrition supplies, including high-energy biscuits for pregnant and breastfeeding women and infant formula, have entered in the past week.

However, in the second week since the Israeli announcement of tactical pauses to allow safe passages for UN aid convoys, Mr. Haq said realities on the ground remain largely the same.  

This includes many challenges to delivering aid, resulting in the impediment of two of the 11 missions on Sunday and the full passage of only seven.

Famine-like conditions

This aid is still a fraction of what is needed, as a catastrophic food crisis worsens across the Strip.  

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it “is doing everything possible to distribute vital food assistance to families,” but reported on Sunday that over half a million people in Gaza are enduring famine-like conditions.  

The UN aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) released an audio of Manar, an employee who works within Gaza, on Monday. She said that “food is never enough,” and that many walk in the heat for hours to search for food and medical supplies.

The Commissioner-General for UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, underscored that this near-famine is largely due to deliberate efforts to dismantle the UN-coordinated humanitarian system through the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is responsible for the killing of nearly 1,400 starving Palestinians near its sites and convoy routes, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Prioritising the GHF, Israel has prevented UNRWA – “the backbone of humanitarian response” – from bringing in assistance since 2 March, he said. 

The Israeli military has released a Palestinian paramedic detained when Israeli troops killed 15 other emergency workers in southern Gaza last month, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.

Assad al-Nassasra was missing for three weeks until the International Committee of the Red Cross received information he was in Israeli detention.

He was reportedly one of 10 detainees freed at an Israeli border crossing with Gaza on Tuesday.

The Israeli military has not commented. But it had confirmed it was holding Mr Nassasra during a briefing on an internal inquiry into the attack, which identified “several professional failures”.

The PRCS denounced the findings as an attempt to justify a “war crime”.

Eight PRCS paramedics, six first responders from Gaza’s Civil Defence agency, and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) were killed when their ambulances, a fire engine and a UN vehicle came under fire in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah during an emergency call-out early on 23 March.

Their bodies were found buried in shallow graves a week later next to the crushed vehicles.

One other PRCS paramedic survived and said he was released by Israeli forces after being detained alongside Mr Nassasra.

The Israeli military initially said its troops fired on “suspicious vehicles” driving in darkness with their headlights and emergency lights off.

But it later said that account was “mistaken” after a video found on the mobile phone of one of the dead paramedics – Rifaat Radwan, who was in the same ambulance as Mr Nassasra – showed the convoy was using its emergency lights.

At the end of the video, the ambulances are seen having pulled over on the roadside. The sound of gunfire can then be heard just as Radwan gets out of his ambulance. It continues for more than five minutes and Radwan is heard saying his last prayers, before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching.

On 20 April, the military released a summary of its internal inquiry which said the shooting of the 14 PRCS and Civil Defence workers resulted from “an operational misunderstanding” by troops from a reconnaissance battalion “who believed they faced a tangible threat”.

It found the killing of the Unrwa employee meanwhile “involved a breach of orders during a combat setting”.

The military said the deputy commander of the reconnaissance battalion was dismissed “due to his responsibilities as the field commander in this incident and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief”.

The PRCS condemned the report, saying it was evidence of what it called Israel’s “policy of systemic distortion of the truth” to protect its soldiers from accountability.

“The results of the occupation’s investigation hold the usual fallacious allegations of rescue teams in Gaza being part of Hamas in order to justify the war crime of targeting medical missions in general, and the war crime of attacking teams and vehicles carrying the protected emblems of the Geneva Conventions in particular,” it said.

A senior UN humanitarian official in Gaza warned “a lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place”.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has described an Israeli military report into a deadly attack on its paramedics as “full of lies”.

The Israeli military said in its report that “professional failures” led to the killing of the 15 workers in Gaza. It dismissed the deputy commander of the unit involved.

A spokeswoman for the PRCS said the report was “invalid” as it “justifies and shifts the responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different”.

Fourteen emergency workers and a UN worker were killed on 23 March after a convoy of PRCS ambulances, a UN car and a fire truck came under fire by the Israeli military.

The UN’s humanitarian chief in Gaza suggested the investigation did not go far enough. “A lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place,” said Jonathan Whittall.

“Without accountability, we risk continuing to watch atrocities unfolding, and the norms designed to protect us all, eroding.”

The Red Crescent and several other international organisations have previously called for an independent investigation into the incident. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) investigation was carried out by its Fact-Finding Mechanism, which it describes as impartial.

The IDF report said the incident took place in what it called a “hostile and dangerous combat zone”, and that the commander on the ground perceived an immediate and tangible threat after vehicles approached rapidly.

It blamed “poor night visibility”, which the IDF said meant the commander did not identify the vehicles as ambulances.

But it later said that account was “mistaken” after a video found on the mobile phone of a medic who was killed showed the vehicles with their lights on and their emergency signals flashing.

The footage shows the vehicles pulling up on the road when shooting begins just before dawn.

The video continues for more than five minutes, with the paramedic saying his last prayers before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching the vehicles.

It also shows the vehicles were clearly marked and the paramedics wearing reflective hi-vis uniform.

The bodies of the 15 dead workers were buried in sand. The report said this was done “to prevent further harm” and that the decision to do so “was reasonable under the circumstances”.

They were not recovered until a week after the incident because international agencies, including the UN, could not organise safe passage to the area or locate the spot.

Journalists invited to an Israeli military briefing on Sunday were shown aerial footage, shot in the early hours of 23 March, which showed the series of three attacks. It also showed that several other vehicles, including an ambulance, passed by in the hour or so between the first and second Israeli attack, without being shot at.

Israeli officials said this proved that troops in Gaza did not open fire on medical vehicles unless they felt threatened.

The IDF also confirmed it was holding a PRCS medic it had detained following the incident. They did not confirm his name, but the International Committee of the Red Cross has previously named him as Assad al-Nassasra.

Israel launched its campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 51,201 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society has called for an independent international inquiry into Israel’s killing of 15 emergency workers in southern Gaza.

The organisation released the full video found on the phone of one of its eight paramedics who died when troops fired at a convoy of ambulances on 23 March, which it said constituted a “fully fledged war crime”.

It called on those responsible to be held to account.

Israel’s military said on Monday that a preliminary inquiry indicated troops “opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists”, without giving evidence.

A Red Crescent paramedic who survived has denied his colleagues were linked with any armed groups.

The Israeli military initially said its troops fired on “suspicious vehicles” driving with their lights off.

On Saturday, it admitted that initial version of events was “mistaken” after the last part of the paramedic’s video was released showing the convoy was using its emergency lights.

The bodies of the eight Red Crescent paramedics, six Civil Defence first responders and one UN staff member were recovered from a shallow grave a week after their deaths, once the UN was able to obtain safe passage to the area.

The 18-minute video released on Monday was filmed by paramedic Rifaat Radwan.

At the start of the footage, he can be heard talking with his colleague Asaad al-Nassasra – whose fate remains unknown – as their ambulance drives along an unlit road at night-time.

A second ambulance then approaches from the other direction, and Radwan and Nassasra decide to travel with them in a convoy following a conversation with its driver.

Later, a fire engine and a third ambulance – all with their flashing emergency lights clearly visible – are seen overtaking Radwan’s vehicle shortly before they reach a van on the roadside.

The emergency vehicles pull over and the sound of gunfire begins just as Radwan gets out. It continues for more than five minutes and Radwan is heard saying his last prayers, before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching.

The Red Crescent said on Wednesday that the video showed “this was neither a random incident nor an individual error, but rather a series of deliberate attacks”.

“The first was the shooting of an ambulance en route to evacuate casualties after a home was bombed in the al-Hashashin area.”

“This was followed by a direct attack on the PRCS and Civil Defence ambulance convoy – despite the team following all safety protocols – and then by the targeting of a fourth ambulance that was heading to support the others,” it added.

The society insisted the area had not been classified by the Israeli military as a “red zone”, which meant no prior co-ordination was required to access the site, and that the video showed that Israeli military vehicles had not been visible in the area.

It also said preliminary forensic reports showed that the medics were killed by “multiple gunshot wounds to the upper parts of the bodies”, which it described as “further evidence of deliberate killing”.

At a news conference in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the society’s president Dr Younes al-Khatib called for an independent international investigation into the incident and for those responsible to be held accountable.

“We’ll pursue this issue until the end. For us, these 15 men represent all those who were killed for the sake of saving lives, for the sake of humanity,” he said.

“And justice was not brought to them. We hope this time and through these 15 men, we can bring justice.”

Khatib dismissed the Israeli military’s inquiry, saying the society did not “trust” it to provide all the answers about what happened due to “previous experience”.

He also rejected the military’s accusation that Hamas operatives were among those killed, saying it had failed “to prove even once in 50 years that the Red Crescent or its crew carry or use weapons”.

Later, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that its Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, had been presented with the findings of the initial inquiry into the incident and instructed that it be “pursued in greater depth and completed in the coming days by the general staff investigation mechanism”.

“All the claims raised regarding the incident will be examined through the mechanism and presented in a detailed and thorough manner for a decision on how to handle the event,” it added.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 50,750 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.