Red Crescent says staff member killed in Israeli attack on southern Gaza
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says that Israeli forces have attacked its headquarters in Khan Younis, causing a fire that killed one staff member and injured three others.
🚨A video captures the initial moments of the Israeli forces' attack on the Palestine Red Crescent Society headquarters in Khan Younis, which sparked a fire in the building, killing one staff member and injuring three others.#NotATarget #Gaza pic.twitter.com/lZ8bEh5jGz
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) August 2, 2025
‘Heartbroken’: Palestine Red Crescent slams Israel for ‘deliberate attack’ on its HQ
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says one of its staff members, Omar Isleem, was killed early on Sunday in what it described as a deliberate Israeli strike.
Earlier we reported that Israeli forces attacked the PRCS headquarters in Khan Younis, causing a fire that killed one staff member and injured three.
In a statement, the humanitarian group said: “We are heartbroken to share that our colleague Omar Isleem was killed early this morning in an attack on our headquarters in Khan Younis. Two other colleagues were also injured in the strike.”
The PRCS said the location of its headquarters was well known to Israeli forces and “clearly marked with the protective red emblem”, adding, “this was not a mistake.
“This deliberate attack on a protected Red Crescent facility is a grave violation of international humanitarian law – it is a war crime,” the statement said.
Unpacking Israel’s ‘tactic to dismember Gaza’s systems and make it unliveable’
Raja Khalidi, the director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, says Israel has succeeded in creating a “desperate” situation in Gaza that extends beyond the killing of Palestinians to also eliminating community relations, markets and societies.
“It’s no longer about Gaza’s traditional resilience and innovativeness, which we all know through 15 years of blockade, and what Gaza was and compared to now what has become and what Israel has reduced it to,” he told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Khalidi said if Israel has not succeeded in its other declared aims, it seems to be succeeding in its effort to completely dismember Gaza’s financial and social systems.
“And this is what’s worrying because traditionally the social fabric of Gaza is known to be sound, solid and very protective,” he added, noting that the chaos that’s being witnessed currently “is not just a terrible consequence of war”.
“This is part of Israel’s tactic to dismember Gaza, dismantle it, make it unliveable; we’ve said it from the very first days – and in every phase of this war, we learn more what it means to make Gaza unliveable.”
