THE Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) demanded an independent investigation into Israel’s killing of 15 paramedics in Gaza last month, when it held a news conference in el-Bireh in the occupied West Bank yesterday.
‘It is no longer sufficient to speak of respecting international law and the Geneva Convention,’ PRCS president Younis al-Khatib insisted. ‘It is now required from the international community and the UN Security Council to implement the necessary punishment against all who are responsible.’
Al-Khatib also called on the international community to safeguard aid workers and prevent the targeting of hospitals, medical centres or ambulance vehicles and demanded Israel disclose the whereabouts of PRCS staff who are still missing.
He listed evidence contained in the video footage showing Israeli soldiers killing the 15 medics, contradicting Israel’s narrative about what happened.
The ambulances had emergency lights on and the PRCS crew wore emergency vests, despite Israeli claims to the contrary.
The Israelis directly opened fire on the ambulances, also confirmed by one survivor, who said they came under direct fire with no warning.
He also spoke of having been used by Israeli officers as a ‘human shield’ before being able to escape.
Al-Khatib said: ‘We at PRCS have been accustomed to Israel’s false allegations and fabricated stories with regards to what goes on in the Gaza Strip.
‘This involves the assassination of 15 PRCS members. However, we believe that the whole world, including media representatives, has now come to realise who is telling the truth.’
The PRCS call for an international commission of inquiry to establish what happened has been responded to by Germany and other countries.
‘There are very significant questions about the actions of the Israeli army now,’ German foreign ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said.
‘An investigation and accountability of the perpetrators are urgently needed,’ he added, describing accusations against the Israeli military as ‘shocking’ and ‘really terrible’ which ‘urgently need to be cleared up’.
Fully investigating the incident will be ‘a question that ultimately affects the credibility of the Israeli constitutional state’, he added.
The Dutch government has tightened controls for all military and ‘dual use’ goods destined for Israel, which will no longer be covered by general export licences, the government said in a letter to parliament.
- French President Emmanuel Macron and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi told a joint press conference in Cairo that any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘unacceptable’.
The French president is in El Arish, a town in northern Egypt 50km (31 miles) from Gaza today, where humanitarian aid is gathered.
It’s very symbolic for a head of state to go there at a moment when assistance is backed up on the border, as Israel has stopped allowing aid into Gaza. Macron will also meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II as well as with el-Sisi again to focus particularly on Gaza.
Netanyahu detours to avoid arrest
ISRAELI prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took flight detours to the United States, with his plane avoiding the airspace of several countries that could enforce the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the war criminal.
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu’s aircraft took off from the Hungarian capital of Budapest and landed in Washington on Sunday after flying through a path about 400 kilometres longer.
The plane flew over Croatia, Italy and France and avoided the airspace of Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands due to concerns that they could have acted on the ICC warrant against Netanyahu in the case of an emergency landing.
Netanyahu met with US President Donald Trump at the White House yesterday.
In November 2024, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, obliging all the 125 countries which signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC to detain and surrender him to the Hague-based court.
The Israeli prime minister travelled to Hungary, which is a member of the ICC, last Thursday.
The ICC asked the Hungarian government to arrest him, but Budapest refused to comply, and promptly announced it was quitting the court.
The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 50,695 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 115,475
