A large crowd gathered on Monday, March 31, in Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, to accompany the bodies of 15 rescue workers − eight Red Crescent workers, six members of Gaza's civil defense emergency unit, and one employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. They were killed by Israeli forces during a rescue mission they were conducting in Rafah, in the southern Palestinian territory. Their bodies were found buried on Sunday in an improvised mass grave, apparently plowed over by Israeli forces' bulldozers. They had been missing and were presumed dead since March 23.

The Palestinian Red Crescent stated that the rescue workers and their vehicles were clearly marked as carrying "medical and humanitarian personnel," and accused Israeli troops of killing them "in cold blood." The Israeli army claimed that its soldiers opened fire on vehicles that were "advancing suspiciously" without identifying themselves. According to the International Red Cross, this was the deadliest attack on its personnel in the past eight years worldwide. Israel prohibits foreign press from entering the Gaza Strip.

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