There was concern within the voices of the Palestinian rescuers as their convoy moved alongside darkened roads close to Rafah to the spot the place they believed a staff of their colleagues lay injured.
It was the night time of March 23 and even for harmful Gaza, these within the autos appeared to understand their rescue mission concerned excessive peril.
“These bastards — they’re solely concentrating on our groups,” stated Rifaat Radwan, a paramedic using in one of many lead autos who turned on his telephone’s digicam. The total footage was later launched by the Palestine Pink Crescent Society.
Radwan’s staff was headed to the place the opposite group had been attacked just a few hours earlier by Israel’s navy.
By early morning, he and 14 others — all paramedics or help staff, in line with the United Nations — can be lifeless, their our bodies buried in a mass grave alongside their crushed autos.
For greater than every week and a half, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) justified the assault, insisting there have been quite a few Hamas militants among the many lifeless first responders and that their autos had been performing suspiciously and driving with out emergency lights.
However Palestinian advocates say rising video proof — together with video from Radwan’s telephone, discovered on the scene of the incident — and eyewitness accounts counsel the Israeli model of occasions contained at finest, obtrusive omissions, and at worst, outright lies about what occurred that night time.
Footage seems to indicate final moments
In Radwan’s video footage, components of which had been first launched by the New York Instances, the Palestinian Pink Crescent staff of their autos are heard speaking to one another about their anxiousness, with one even reciting an end-of-life prayer, as a result of that they had been unable to contact the lacking members of the earlier rescue crew.
Recognizing the chance of an Israeli ambush, somebody advised forming up a number of ambulances in a line and making certain all had their flashing emergency lights on to make sure the very best visibility.
Nevertheless it would not make a distinction. Seconds after the ambulance convoy stops subsequent to a stricken automobile on the facet of the highway, the coming medics get hit with a hail of automated weapons hearth.
“They’ve surrounded us! They’re killing us!” one of many medics is heard screaming on the video.
Others are heard praying for his or her lives, together with Radwan.
“Oh, Lord, settle for me as a martyr and forgive me,” he stated, as he uttered his last goodbyes to his mom.
There’s extra gunfire, after which silence. It took a full week earlier than a staff from the United Nations was capable of get entry to the realm and retrieve the our bodies.
No rationalization for preliminary deceptive info
For greater than 10 days after the assault and in a number of IDF briefings, officers insisted the Palestinian autos had been travelling with out lights.
They also said that its ambush killed 9 “terrorists,” with out offering any direct proof of their claims. Later, the IDF stated six members of militant teams had been among the many lifeless, however once more didn’t present proof.
On Monday, at a information convention in Ramallah within the occupied West Financial institution, the Palestine Pink Crescent Society, which had eight of its members killed within the assault, launched the total 19 minutes of Radwan’s last video, with English subtitles. The video was discovered on Radwan’s telephone, the group stated, which was recovered from his physique greater than every week later.
Following the total video’s launch, Israeli authorities spokesperson David Mencer gave an up to date account, elaborating on the IDF’s place.
“While on a stakeout in opposition to terrorist exercise, IDF troopers opened hearth from a distance at autos that had been transferring suspiciously of their path,” Mencer stated, once more repeating that there have been “terrorists” among the many group.
“What had been Hamas terrorists doing in ambulances?” he stated.
A weekend flip
Then, over the weekend in a swiftly known as briefing, an Israeli navy spokesperson, who spoke on the situation of anonymity, admitted the paramedics had been “mistakenly” recognized as a risk and stated the navy would examine why.
In one other social media post Monday, the IDF stated its preliminary inquiry decided its troops fired as a consequence of a “perceived risk” and that the overall employees fact-finding and evaluation mechanism would probe deeper.
The Israeli navy is altering its account of the killing of 15 Gaza emergency staff after a video revealed by the Palestine Pink Crescent Society confirmed the medics in clearly marked emergency autos, with their lights on, being fired on by troopers. Israel initially claimed troopers had opened hearth on autos that approached their place ‘suspiciously’ in the dead of night with out lights or markings, contradicting the account of the one identified survivor of the incident.
Neither assertion, nevertheless, defined why the IDF initially launched deceptive info and solely modified its story after the Radwan video was made public.
“We’re asking the Israelis why they had been killed,” stated Younis Al-Khatib, the society’s president. “They had been sporting their [safety] gear. The [ambulance] lights had been on.
“Why did you destroy the ambulances after killing them? Why did you attempt to dig deep [in the sand] and conceal the ambulances? Why did you cover the our bodies?”
Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert on Monday added his voice to a rising refrain of requires an unbiased, exterior investigation. “It smells of a cover-up,” he stated. A longtime foe of present prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Olmert informed the BBC the Israeli navy has a lot to elucidate.
“It seems to be dangerous, it smells dangerous and it disturbs me.”
In a briefing, an IDF spokesperson stated the troopers weren’t anticipating the convoy to cease the place it did on highway and had been stunned to see individuals getting out and operating; later, he stated it was authorized process to bury our bodies in mass graves to defend them from wild animals.
“There was no incident the place the IDF tried to cowl up. Quite the opposite, they known as the UN instantly,” stated the spokesperson. The IDF couldn’t clarify why the ambulances had been additionally buried.
A lone survivor
Munther Jihad Abed, 27, the lone confirmed survivor of the assault, informed CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife that the IDF made no effort to confirm at whom they had been capturing.
“There was heavy gunfire instantly on us, on our automotive,” he stated in an interview close to Khan Younis. “I did not hear a factor from my colleagues — not a sound, besides for his or her last breaths. I noticed loss of life.”
On the Ramallah information convention, Pink Crescent officers stated the IDF troopers intentionally selected to not verify this, regardless of having quite a few alternatives to take action.
“It wasn’t a single incident, it was a number of assaults,” stated Pink Crescent spokesperson Nebal Farsakh.
“It began with concentrating on the ambulance, which you’ll be able to see [on the video] along with the highway. Later, you see the second of concentrating on the convoy of ambulances, and lastly the third assault was for the ambulance, the fourth ambulance, which got here to help from the opposite facet.”
‘This part of the struggle is much less widespread’
Israel has been repeatedly accused of indiscriminately concentrating on Palestinian civilians in Gaza during the last 18 months of struggle within the territory.
In one of many deadliest incidents, in February 2025, the IDF killed 112 individuals ready in a line up for flour in Gaza Metropolis. Across the similar time, a panel of UN experts condemned repeated Israeli “massacres,” together with assaults on humanitarian help convoys.
Israeli human rights group Yesh Din reported last July that of greater than 664 complaints made into the conduct of Israel’s navy over a 10-year interval, solely six per cent led to an investigation and only one led to an indictment.
The group concluded the navy’s personal evaluation process used for such investigations “refrains from conducting a correct and efficient evaluation.”
Whereas the mass loss of life of Palestinian civilians has generated intense worldwide outrage, notably from humanitarian teams, inside Israel, criticism of the IDF and its practices has usually been muted.
Longtime activist Sarit Michaeli, with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, says the lethal incident with the paramedics could also be a larger take a look at of transparency for the IDF.
“This part of the struggle is much less widespread,” she informed CBC Information in an interview.
“I believe many Israelis perceive that navy motion just isn’t going to convey the hostages again alive. And since extra individuals are prepared to criticize the justification of this struggle, individuals are prepared to be a bit extra important of issues that occur throughout the struggle, and the killing of the paramedics is a type of issues.”
Whether or not which means there shall be repercussions nevertheless, is one other subject, says Michaeli.
U.S. President Donald Trump has endorsed Israel’s navy marketing campaign in Gaza and made his personal makes an attempt to undermine the work of the Worldwide Prison Courtroom, a potential worldwide mechanism to research the paramedics’ deaths.
Final yr, after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Trump sanctioned the courtroom and its lead prosecutor.
“It does not seem like the Worldwide Prison Courtroom has immense clout proper now that it could possibly use to research or prosecute this case,” stated Michaeli.
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