Israel has been accused of executing Palestinian paramedics after bodies were found in a mass grave with their hands tied and bullet wounds to the head.

In what would amount to a serious war crime if proven, some 15 people from a number of groups are alleged to have been killed by the IDF. Their bodies were recovered from a shallow grave on Sunday after a week-long rescue operation, according to the UN.

Accounts from Gaza suggest some of the group, from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Palestinian Civil Defence (PCD) and the UN Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA), had been handcuffed, or had their hands or feet tied.

The clearly identified humanitarian workers had been dispatched to collect injured Gazans on March 23 in the Rafah area amid an escalation of Israeli military operations.

The UN claims the humanitarian workers came under fire from Israeli forces who were advancing in the area, with video footage taken near Tal as-Sultan by a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) rescue party showing a crushed UN vehicle, ambulances and a fire truck that had been flattened and partially buried in the sand by the Israeli military.

‘Those people were shot’

“This is a huge blow to us…These people were shot,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for OCHA.

Volker Türk, a UN human rights chief, issued a statement on Monday condemning the Israeli military’s attack and calling for an independent, prompt and thorough investigation into the apparently systematic killings.

“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 said.

The discovery of the bodies buried next to their “clearly destroyed” vehicles was “deeply disturbing” he added.

“This raises significant questions with regard to the conduct of the Israeli army during and in the aftermath of the incident.”