Tommaso Della Longa, Spokesperson and Manager of the Media Unit at International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies spoke to CGTN Europe, expressing shock over the deaths of Red Crescent workers in Gaza. He highlights the ongoing struggle for access and information amidst the conflict, condemns the attacks on humanitarian workers, and emphasizes the need for protection of the Red Crescent emblem.
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00:00Let's talk a little more about the deaths of those Red Crescent workers in Gaza.
00:04Tommaso Della Longa is spokesperson and manager of the media unit at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
00:12Thank you for coming on the programme. How are you and your team feeling?
00:16Thanks a lot for having me today.
00:19Well, we are feeling, we are still under shock and let me first show our solidarity, thoughts and condolences to the colleagues of Palestine Red Crescent, their families, their beloved.
00:32Of course it's shocking because our protecting emblem, the Red Cross and Red Crescent should protect our women and men everywhere in the world, of course in conflict areas, but sadly this didn't happen.
00:45We heard from our correspondent that Israel is looking into the incident. Have you had any response from Israeli forces?
00:52Look, at the moment we were really mourning after the last news that we had yesterday when eight bodies were recovered.
01:03We have been asking Palestine Red Crescent and us, we have been asking for an entire week to get access and to get information about our colleagues.
01:12We didn't get anything. Yesterday, after a week, we retrieved the bodies. There is still one colleague that is missing.
01:19So now is the moment really for the mourning of the colleagues to condemn this kind of act, but also to ask for the information about the last colleague who is still missing.
01:30You talk about access, you talk about information. What's happened really darkly highlights the difficult and risky conditions humanitarian groups like yours are dealing with in war-ravaged Gaza, doesn't it?
01:42Yeah, thanks a lot for this question. I mean actually we have been constantly in this difficult situation since the beginning of the conflict.
01:52We have been talking about access to communities for solid 18 months. I mean, if you take away the six weeks of ceasefire, the north of Gaza was, before the ceasefire, has been inaccessible for weeks and months.
02:05So this is exactly what happened again and again. The point here is this is the deadly incident attack on the Red Crescent colleagues, the worst since 2017.
02:18Of course, this is unacceptable, but sadly the number now has arrived to 30 colleagues of Palestine who have been killed since the beginning of the conflict.
02:27And these people, I just want to say for the people who are listening, these people are, yes, humanitarian workers, but also fathers.
02:34They have children, they have a wife, friends. They should have returned home after that shift in the ambulances, and actually they didn't, and this is unacceptable.
02:45You talk about the emblem of the Red Crescent. What is in place to protect your teams in conflict zones like this?
02:55Well, there are different protocols. Of course, I have to admit that sadly Palestine Red Crescent colleagues, as well as the Maghen Davidov ministerial colleagues, have an expertise, sadly, in working in conflict areas because it's not the first time.
03:10Of course, there is, I mean, the emblem should protect everywhere. So the Red Crescent should be, like, intangible, like hospitals should be sanctuaries.
03:21Red Cross premises, the GPS coordinates are shared with the parties of the conflict, as well as other premises. I'm thinking about UN premises.
03:31And, of course, there is a mechanism which is dealt usually by UN and colleagues of the ICRC in also coordinating a movement of humanitarian workers.
03:42But the problem here is that we are seeing this against humanitarian workers, and we've been seeing this also on civilians.
03:48So now, after months of conflict, I mean, we can say again and again that there is no safe space in Gaza, that there is not enough support, and the protection and respect for civilian humanitarian workers is not there.
04:01Thomas Sotelo-Longa, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Civil Society, thank you very much.