The Palestinian Centre For Human Rights (PCHR): The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) direct targeting of an ambulance while carrying a humanitarian mission, killing 3 paramedics and a journalist accompanying him.
PCHR stresses this latest attack is part of a pattern of systematic crimes committed against the medical personnel within a broader policy aimed at undermining the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip. Such a crime constitutes a blatant violation of the international humanitarian law and amounts to a war crime and a crime of genocide.
According to PCHR’s fieldworkers, the crime occurred at around 23:00 on Monday, 09 June 2025 when IOF struck for the second time the al-Haddad Building near al-Shorafa Intersection on Yafa Street in eastern Gaza City. At the time, an ambulance medical crew was trying to recover the dead and rescue the injured following a previous strike.
The attack killed 3 paramedics identified as Hussein ‘Abed Soliman Muheisen (46), Director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in Gaza; Wael Maher Mohammed Al-‘Attar (38); and volunteer paramedic Bara’a Faris ‘Awad ‘Afaneh (18.) Moreover, journalist Mo’men Rajab Riyadh Abu Al-Ouf (21) who was accompanying the ambulance crew to cover the rescue efforts, was also killed.
The crime reflects a repeated pattern of “double tap” strikes in which rescuers are targeted shortly after initial attacks on victims. This crime also reveals a deliberate intent to obstruct the medical personnel’s operations and maximize human losses.
This crime is part of broader recurrent attacks on the healthcare system in Gaza since the outbreak of the Israeli genocidal war in October 2023, during which more than 720 attacks had been reported against the health sector, inflicting destruction or damage to 597 health facilities and directly targeting 186 medical transport vehicles, including 144 ambulances.
These attacks have disrupted urgent and first aid services, killed 917 healthcare professionals and arrested 70 patients and more than 300 health personnel while on their humanitarian duty.1
PCHR views the targeting of an ambulance during a rescue mission as a blatant violation of Articles 18 and 21 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which oblige all parties to respect and protect medical units and means of transport for the wounded, sick civilians, the elderly, and women—especially when clearly marked as part of humanitarian convoys.
Despite the presence of internationally distinctive medical emblems on ambulances and civil defense vehicles and personnel, IOF have persistently violated these protections. Such acts amount to a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which, in paragraph 24, explicitly considers intentional attacks against buildings, materials, medical units, transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions- a war crime requires accountability.
The severity of this crime deepens when placed within the broader context of Israel’s policy ongoing for the past 20 months through which it has deliberately devastated the healthcare system and deprived the civilian population of essential means of survival. This systematic destruction falls under acts of the crime of genocide as defined in Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Targeting the medical personnel and depriving the Gaza Strip population of their right to healthcare is a serious defiance of the international protection system and blatant disregard for international humanitarian law. This occurs amid a deliberate absence of international accountability mechanisms to prosecute the Israeli occupation for its crimes in the Gaza Strip. Such a culture of impunity emboldens Israel to repeat and even escalate its crimes without facing any deterrence.
In light of the above, PCHR urges the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, to take immediate action to halt these crimes, fulfill their legal and moral obligations by providing protection for the medical personnel and means of medical transport.
PCHR also calls for activating the international accountability mechanisms, particularly the International Criminal Court (ICC), to investigate the targeted attacks on the medical personnel as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
PCHR also underscores the importance of establishing an independent international mechanism to document these violations and prosecute their perpetrators in order to end the prevailing culture of impunity and ensure protection for civilians in the Gaza Strip.
