A video recovered from the mobile phone of a Palestinian medic killed along with 14 of his colleagues in Gaza last month contradicts Israeli claims.
The video – found on the phone of deceased Rifat Radwan and released on Saturday by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) – shows their final moments as the Palestinian medics, wearing highly reflective uniforms and inside a clearly identifiable PRCS ambulance, are shot at by Israeli forces in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood in southern Gaza on March 23.
The Israeli military had said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “terrorists” approaching them in “suspicious vehicles”. It said, “several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward [Israeli army] troops without headlights or emergency signals”.
PRCS lost eight of its workers in the attack. Six members of the Palestinian Civil Defence agency and an employee of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, were also killed that day.
Their bodies were found buried near Rafah in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described as a mass grave.
What does the video show?
The video, apparently filmed from inside a moving vehicle, captures a red firetruck and ambulances driving through the night.
The vehicles stop beside one another on the roadside, and two uniformed men exit. Moments later, intense gunfire erupts.
In the video, the voices of two medics are heard – one saying, “The vehicle, the vehicle,” and another responding: “It seems to be an accident.”
Seconds later, a volley of gunfire breaks out, and the screen goes black.
The medic recording the scene can later be heard reciting the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada, which Muslims traditionally say in the face of death. “There is no God but God, Muhammad is his messenger,” he says repeatedly, his voice trembling with fear as intense gunfire continues in the background.
He is also heard saying: “Forgive me mother because I chose this way, the way of helping people.” He then says: “Accept my martyrdom, God, and forgive me.”
Just before the video ends, he is heard saying: “The Jews are coming, the Jews are coming,” apparently referring to Israeli soldiers.
PRCS said the convoy was dispatched in response to emergency calls from civilians trapped following an Israeli bombardment in Rafah.
According to Gaza’s civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal, several members of their team were found with their hands and feet bound and visible bullet wounds on their heads and torsos, suggesting they were executed at close range after being identified for their humanitarian work. One of the civil defence personnel had been decapitated, and the remaining bodies were found in pieces, he said.
Jonathan Whittall, the head of OCHA in the Palestinian territory, said the bodies of the humanitarian workers were “in their uniforms, still wearing gloves” when they were found.
An Israeli military official said the bodies had been covered “in sand and cloth” to avoid damage until coordination with international organisations could be arranged for their retrieval. The military added that it was investigating the attack.
‘No parallel in modern history’
Israel “must be held accountable for its crimes, the likes of which have no parallel in modern history,” a spokesperson for Gaza civil defence told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
“We demand the formation of an international investigation committee into the occupation’s targeting of paramedics in Rafah,” the spokesperson said, adding that Palestinian rescue workers will continue “to perform their duties despite the occupation’s deliberate targeting of them”.
In a statement on Saturday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said the Israeli military carried out a “brutal and unprecedented” execution of medical and civil defence teams, calling it “another crime added to the occupation’s black record”.
It said the video “completely disproves the Israeli occupation’s false and misleading narrative” that the vehicles approached “suspiciously” without clear signals.
Palestinian group Hamas on Saturday said the “irrefutable visual evidence shatters the occupation’s fabricated ‘suspicious movement’ lies, proving systematic targeting of humanitarian personnel and constituting a premeditated murder under international law”.
“We demand international justice for the victims of this heinous crime,” it said.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, also condemned the attack, raising concerns over possible “war crimes” by the Israeli military.
“I am appalled by the recent killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers, which raise further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military,” Volker Turk told the UN Security Council on Thursday, calling for an “independent, prompt and thorough investigation”.
According to UNRWA, at least 408 aid workers, including more than 280 UNRWA staff, have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023. Since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, have been killed in the enclave.
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