Israel frees Gaza aid worker who went missing after deadly attack on medics, rescue service says

Israeli occupation authorities freed a Palestinian emergency responder who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza as they were responding to an incident, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said today, according to Reuters.

PRCS staff member Asaad Al-Nsasrah went missing after the 15 paramedics and other rescue workers were shot dead on 23 March in three separate shootings at the same location near the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Video footage from the scene showed Israeli occupation forces open fire indiscriminately as the aid workers arrived.

The 15 were buried in a shallow grave, close to their wrecked vehicles, where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the PRCS.

“The occupation forces have just released medic Asaad Al-Nsasrah, who was detained on March 23, 2025, while performing his humanitarian duty during the massacre of medical teams in the Tel Al-Sultan area of Rafah Governorate,” PRCS said in a post on X.

The Israeli military did not have an immediate comment.

The military had initially lied in its account of events, claiming soldiers had opened fire on vehicles that approached their position “suspiciously” in the dark without lights or markings. But video recovered from the mobile phone of one of the dead men and published by the PRCS showed emergency workers in their uniforms and clearly marked ambulances and fire trucks, with their lights on, being fired on by soldiers.

On 20 April, the Israeli military said a review into the killing of emergency responders in Gaza found there had been “several professional failures”. It said a deputy commander, a reservist who was the field commander, would be dismissed from his position for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report, and added that a commanding officer was to be reprimanded.

READ: Palestinians released from Israeli detention hospitalised over ‘severe’ health conditions