Fifteen emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, Palestinian Civil Defence and the United Nations have been recovered from a grave in the sand in the south of the Gaza Strip, UN officials said.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said in a post on X that the bodies were buried near “wrecked & well-marked vehicles,” adding: “They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives. We demand answers & justice.”

Israel’s military did not comment directly on the deaths of the Red Crescent workers.

In a later statement to Reuters, it said that it had facilitated the evacuation of the bodies from the area, which it described as an active combat zone. It did not specifically respond to questions about why the bodies were retrieved beneath the sand nor why the vehicles were found crushed.