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Gaza aid worker killings: one humanitarian still missing in shallow grave
UN humanitarians and partners on Tuesday expressed deep shock at the killing of 15 colleagues on duty in southern Gaza whose remains were recovered from a shallow grave after a week-long rescue operation, noting that one worker is still missing.
“This is a huge blow to us…These people were shot,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.
“Normally we are not at a loss for words and we are spokespeople, but sometimes we have difficulty finding them. This is one of those cases,” he told journalists in Geneva, referring to video footage taken near Tal Al Sultan by an OCHA rescue party showing a crushed UN vehicle, ambulances and a fire truck that had been flattened and buried in the sand by the Israeli military.
The clearly identified humanitarian workers from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Palestinian Civil Defence and the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, had been despatched to collect injured people on 23 March in the Rafah area.
They came under fire from Israeli forces who were advancing in the area, OCHA’s top official in the Palestinian Occupied Territory said, in a detailed post on X.
Jonathan Whittall explained that on the day of the attack, five ambulances, a fire truck – and a UN vehicle which arrived following the initial assault – were all hit by Israeli fire, after which contact was lost with teams.
One survivor said Israeli forces had killed both of the crew in his ambulance, Mr. Whittall said. “For days, OCHA coordinated to reach the site but our access was only granted five days later…After hours of digging, we recovered one body - a civil defence worker beneath his fire truck.”
The week-long rescue operation ended on Sunday 30 March with the recovery of the bodies of 15 humanitarian colleagues: eight from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six from the Palestinian Civil Defence (PCD) and the UNRWA worker.
The body of one more PRCS worker is still missing at the site, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which repeated its calls for information from the Israeli military.
Available information indicated that the first team had been killed by Israeli forces on 23 March; the other emergency and aid crews were struck one after another over several hours as they searched for their missing colleagues, OCHA said.
According to UNRWA, 408 aid workers including more than 280 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza since the war began on 7 October 2023.
Additional video footage released by OCHA taken from within a UN vehicle near the site of last Sunday’s incident also showed two people walking and then running to escape sniper fire. According to OCHA, a woman was shot in the back of the head and a young man trying to retrieve her was also shot. The OCHA team managed to recover her body in the UN vehicle.
Despite a demand for “answers and justice” from Israel by the UN’s emergency relief chief Tom Fletcher, no information has yet been provided, his office said.
“We keep engaging with the Israeli authorities daily on this and on other burning matters including, importantly, the critical need to reopen crossings for supplies,” said Mr. Laerke. “Because while this is a huge blow to us on all levels, the crisis itself, just moves on and gets worse every day.”
The development comes days after the UN agency warned that acts of war in Gaza “bear the hallmarks of atrocity crimes”, with hundreds of children and other civilians killed in Israeli airstrikes in intensely populated areas and hospital patients “killed in their beds, ambulances shot at and first responders killed”.
James Elder, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, condemned “unprecedented breaches” of international humanitarian law (IHL) in Gaza linked to the resumption of Israeli bombardment and ground operations inside the shattered enclave.
Every day since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel broke down on 18 March with heavy Israeli strikes, “100 children have been killed and maimed every single day since that moment”, Mr. Elder insisted.
“Sheer will doesn't get you to survive when we see breach after breach of IHL, breach after breach of restricting aid,” the UNICEF spokesperson continued, four weeks since the Israeli authorities shut Gaza’s borders to all commercial and humanitarian aid.
Echoing those concerns, IFRC’s Mr. Della Longa reported that hospitals “are literally overwhelmed” and running out of medicine and medical equipment.
The IFRC spokesperson also warned that a lack of fuel or damage have put “more than half” of ambulance teams of the Palestine Red Crescent out of action. This is significant because these ambulances “are the ones answering the emergency number that Palestinians can call when they need help”, he explained.
ends
STORY: Gaza Update – OCHA, WHO, UN Women
TRT: 02’45”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 1 April 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Speakers:
- Jens Laerke, spokesperson, OCHA
- James Elder, spokesperson, UNICEF
- Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson, IFRC
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: Palais des Nations, Flag Alley
- Wide shot of podium with speakers.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Jens Laerke, spokesperson, OCHA: “It has been a very difficult weekend I think, for all of us. You have seen the videos that we put out, that…normally we are not at a loss for words, and we are spokespeople, but sometimes we have difficulty finding them. This is one of those cases. These people were shot.”
- Wide shot, Press room, TV screens, journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Jens Laerke, spokesperson, OCHA: “You will have seen what Under-Secretary-General Fletcher tweeted out as well, demanding justice and answers. And on that, I can say as of this morning we have not received the answers expected.”
- Wide, journalists, TV screen, control booths.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Jens Laerke, spokesperson, OCHA: “We keep engaging with the Israeli authorities daily on this and on other burning matters including, importantly, the critical need to reopen crossings for supplies. Because while this is a huge blow to us on all levels, the crisis itself, just moves on and gets worse every day.”
- Wide, podium speakers, journalists, TV screens.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – James Elder, spokesperson, UNICEF: “Sheer will doesn't get you to survive when we see breach after breach of IHL, breach after breach of restricting aid. So, this can't fall from the world's attention and conscious[ness], because we are seeing unprecedented breaches across international humanitarian law.”
- Wide, Press room, journalists, TV screens showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson, IFRC: “Just I would just like to echo what UN colleagues just said on the shocking, outrageous incident and what we saw last Sunday. I just want to add that one colleague of Palestinian Red Crescent is still missing and we continue calling to have more information about what is happening.”
- Wide, Press room, podium speakers, TV screens, control booths.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson, IFRC: “The ambulances of the Palestinian Red Crescent are the ones answering to the emergency number that Palestinians can call when they need help; more than half of them now are not working and continuing like this because of lack of fuel or because they were damaged. So, if this continues, it will mean that in the next future [days] Palestinians would not have any more ambulances to save lives.”
- Medium, TV journalist filming.
- Medium, journalist listening.
- Medium-wide, journalists.
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
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- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
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Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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