Attack on Palestine Red Crescent Society’s Gaza HQ condemned by global health organizations

The World Health Organization has led condemnation of an Israeli attack on the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s headquarters in Gaza that killed one person and left several others injured.

Accusing Israeli forces of “deliberately” targeting its headquarters in the southern city of Khan Younis in the early hours of Sunday morning, the PRCS — which provides emergency medical services in the besieged enclave — said in a statement that artillery struck the upper floors of its building, which it said was clearly marked with its emblem.

As workers tried to evacuate the building, the second floor was hit again, it said, followed by “direct shelling of the ground floor” as rescue teams fought a fire caused by the bombing.

The attack killed one of its staff members, identified as Omar Isleem, and injured two other workers, along with a civilian who had tried to help extinguish a subsequent fire, the PCRS said. Photos published by the PRCS appeared to show significant destruction, with debris covering the floor.

“The repeated strikes during evacuation and rescue operations clearly demonstrate that the shelling was deliberate and systematic,” the organization said.

The attack came amid a spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza marked by growing starvation and rising deaths from malnutrition due to Israel’s offensive and crippling aid restrictions.

Meanwhile, there was outcry in Israel after Hamas released video over the weekend appearing to show a visibly gaunt hostage alongside images of emaciated babies as international fury grows over the rising deaths of Palestinians from starvation under Israel’s offensive and crippling aid restrictions.

The undated video, which NBC News was not able to independently verify, appears to show Evyatar David, who was one of around 250 people taken hostage during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

The video’s release coincided with a visit to Israel by President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who met with hostages’ families, a week after quitting ceasefire talks, blaming Hamas’ intransigence.

The Israel Defense Forces said it was “reviewing the claim that a building belonging to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was damaged,” and that uninvolved individuals were harmed as a result of one of its strikes.

But World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the incident as “appalling” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza in a statement on X on Sunday. “We demand that attacks on health and humanitarian workers must stop,” he said.

In a separate statement, The International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday that it was “unacceptable that first responders in Gaza — like Omar and staff and volunteers of the PRCS — go to work every day fearing they may not return to their families.”

The United Nations Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territories also expressed “deep shock and outrage” over the “continued killings of emergency workers in Gaza.”

“There must be an independent investigation into all killings of civilians,” it said in a separate post shared on X on Sunday, noting that “deliberate killings of humanitarian workers may amount to war crimes.”

The PRCS said on Sunday that at least 51 of its staff members and volunteers, including 29 who it said were killed while performing humanitarian duties, were among those killed since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, marking a deadly escalation in a decadeslong conflict.

More than 60,800 people have been killed since the war began, with hundreds killed over the span of days, according to the health ministry in Gaza.