Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) - A Palestinian Red Crescent staff member who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli fire is being detained by Israeli authorities, the rescue service and the Red Cross said on Sunday.

Hisham Mhana, the spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza, confirmed to Reuters that it had received information that the Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah was being held in an Israeli place of detention.

"As per standard practice, we informed the families immediately. In this case, we also informed the Palestine Red Crescent Society as they have special standing as a partner of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement," he said.

The Israeli army did not immediately comment.

Mhana said the ICRC has not been granted access to Nsasrah, who until Sunday had been declared missing, and also has not been able to visit any of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023.

In a post on X, The PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was "forcibly abducted" while carrying out humanitarian duties.

It added that Nsasrah and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight of them in a "grave violation" of international humanitarian law.

The bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency Service and the U.N. were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza in March.

The U.N. and the Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them after they were dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli airstrikes.

The Israeli military referred Reuters to its statement from Monday, in which it said that a thorough inquiry into the incident was still underway and that it would provide further details only once the investigation is complete.

It said that a preliminary inquiry indicated that "the 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".

The Israeli military has provided no evidence of how it determined that the six were Hamas militants, and the Islamist faction has rejected the accusation.

The only known survivor of the incident, PRCS paramedic Munther Abed, said soldiers had opened fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo. Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)