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Palestinian Red Crescent says one staff killed in Israeli attack on Gaza HQ

Members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society assist a Palestinian person on a stretcher, during the evacuation of people from Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, in this screen grab taken from a handout video released on October 12, 2024. (REUTERS)
Members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society assist a Palestinian person on a stretcher, during the evacuation of people from Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, in this screen grab taken from a handout video released on October 12, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 03 August 2025

Palestinian Red Crescent says one staff killed in Israeli attack on Gaza HQ

Palestinian Red Crescent says one staff killed in Israeli attack on Gaza HQ
  • A video, which the PRCS said “captures the initial moments” of the attack, shows fires burning in a building, with the floors covered in rubble
  • Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Sunday that one of its staff members was killed and three others wounded in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters in Gaza.

“One Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) staff member was killed and three others injured after Israeli forces targeted the Society’s headquarters in Khan Younis, igniting a fire on the building’s first floor,” the aid organization said in a post on X.

A video, which the PRCS said “captures the initial moments” of the attack, shows fires burning in a building, with the floors covered in rubble.

It comes two days after US envoy Steve Witkoff visited a US-backed aid station in Gaza to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory.

Nearly two years after the war began, UN agencies have warned that time was running out and that Gaza was “on the brink of a full-scale famine.”

Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in an attack by Israeli forces in southern Gaza in March, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.


Syrian Foreign Ministry reinstates 21 diplomats who had defected during Assad’s regime

Syrian Foreign Ministry reinstates 21 diplomats who had defected during Assad’s regime
Updated 18 sec ago

Syrian Foreign Ministry reinstates 21 diplomats who had defected during Assad’s regime

Syrian Foreign Ministry reinstates 21 diplomats who had defected during Assad’s regime
  • Diplomats met minister this week in Damascus, Al-Shaibani signed agreement
  • Those returning will help staff with their extensive experience

LONDON: Asaad Al-Shaibani, the Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, has reinstated 21 diplomats who had defected from the former Bashar Assad regime in protest at its brutal crackdown on civilians during the civil war.

Al-Shaibani met the diplomats this week at the ministry’s headquarters in Damascus and signed an agreement to reinstate them to the ministry’s staff.

He acknowledged the efforts of the diplomats in exposing the crimes of the Assad regime and praised their commitment to supporting the people of the Syrian Arab Republic and their just cause, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.

He added that the decision to reinstate the 21 diplomats was a significant move toward restoring national competencies.

Yasser Al-Jundi, the director of the Diplomatic Institute at the ministry, told SANA that the diplomats possessed “extensive experience in diplomatic work both before and after the revolution,” which would benefit new staff.

Diplomat Hussein Al-Sabbagh said that “the dissident diplomats have been waiting for this day since liberation (and the fall of Assad) to support diplomatic work in accordance with Syria’s new foreign policy.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates issued a statement in May requesting that dissenting diplomats contact the ministry to update their information in preparation for a return to the ministry’s staff.