Video footage refutes IOF account of attack that killed 15 Gaza medics

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: The New York Times
5 Apr 2025 09:41
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Shot from inside a moving vehicle, the footage depicts a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, all clearly marked and displaying both headlights and flashing emergency lights.

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First responders embrace each other at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 30, 2025, as the bodies of Palestinian first responders who were killed a week before in Israeli military fire on ambulances arrive at the facility AFP)

A video retrieved from the cell phone of a Palestinian paramedic, whose body was discovered alongside 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza in late March, shows clearly marked ambulances and a fire truck with emergency lights activated as they came under heavy Israeli gunfire, The New York Times reported on Friday.

During a press conference at the United Nations on Friday, officials from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), moderated by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said they had submitted the nearly seven-minute video to the UN Security Council.

Earlier in the week, Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani denied that Israeli forces had "randomly" attacked an ambulance. He claimed that multiple vehicles had been seen "advancing suspiciously" without headlights or emergency signals toward Israeli troops, prompting the shooting. He also claimed that nine of the individuals killed were Palestinian Resistance fighters.

The Times acquired the footage from a senior UN diplomat who requested anonymity in order to share sensitive material. The location and time of the video, captured in Rafah in southern Gaza early on March 23, were verified by the newspaper.

So I guess everything the IDF said a few days ago about those paramedics in Gaza was not true at all.

NYTimes just released this video found on the cell phone of one paramedic.

Completely contradicts everything the IDF said. pic.twitter.com/XGai1veSqL
— Assaf, MD (@_Assaf_MD) April 5, 2025

Vehicles clearly marked

Shot from inside a moving vehicle, the footage depicts a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, all clearly marked and displaying both headlights and flashing emergency lights, driving southward on a road north of Rafah just after sunrise.

A video obtained by the New York Times from the cell phone of a martyred Palestinian paramedic, who was discovered alongside 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in #Gaza in late March, inarguably refuted the Israeli narrative on the killing of rescue workers on a road north of… pic.twitter.com/8C9icpXTng
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) April 5, 2025

The convoy halts when it comes across a damaged ambulance on the roadside—an earlier vehicle sent to aid injured civilians had reportedly come under attack. The new rescue vehicles move to the side of the road. At least two uniformed rescue workers are seen exiting the fire truck and ambulance, both bearing the Red Crescent emblem, and approaching the damaged vehicle.

Suddenly, intense gunfire erupts. The barrage of bullets can be seen and heard striking the convoy. The footage shakes and then goes dark, though the audio continues for five minutes with unrelenting gunfire. A man’s voice is heard in Arabic noting the presence of Israeli soldiers.

The paramedic filming the attack is repeatedly heard reciting the shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith typically spoken when facing death. He asks for forgiveness and expresses that he knows he is going to die.

“Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose — to help people,” he says.

In the background, voices of distressed aid workers and shouted commands in Hebrew are audible, though the content of the Hebrew speech remains unclear.

According to PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh, speaking from Ramallah, the paramedic who filmed the video was later found with a gunshot wound to the head in the mass grave. His identity has not been made public due to concerns for the safety of his family still living in Gaza, a UN diplomat confirmed.

'Targeted from a very close range'

At the UN headquarters press conference, PRCS President Dr. Younis al-Khatib and Deputy Marwan Jilani said the evidence they had gathered—including the video, audio, and forensic analysis of the bodies—directly contradicts the Israeli military’s account.

The disappearance and subsequent discovery of the 15 aid workers, missing since March 23, have sparked global condemnation. Both the UN and PRCS maintain that the victims were unarmed and posed no threat.

“Their bodies have been targeted from a very close range,” indicated al-Khatib, criticizing "Israel’s" failure to provide information on the missing medics. “They knew exactly where they were because they killed them.”

“Their colleagues were in agony, their families were in agony. They kept us for eight days in the dark,” he said.

It took five days of negotiation between the UN, PRCS, and the Israeli military before safe access was granted to search for the missing. On Sunday, rescue teams recovered 15 bodies, mostly buried in a shallow mass grave, alongside crushed ambulances and a UN-marked vehicle.

Al-Khatib stated that one member of the Palestinian Red Crescent remains missing, and "Israel" has not clarified whether he is in custody or has been killed.

Dr. Ahmad Dhair, a forensic doctor at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, said he examined five of the aid workers’ bodies and found four had sustained multiple gunshot wounds, including to the head, chest, and joints.

“I think the scale of this crime should force, that it should oblige the international community to do more and not to accept that this would be another incident that goes in the files and be forgotten after a few days,” Jilani underscored.

According to the UN and PRCS, one Red Crescent paramedic in the convoy survived after being detained and later released by the Israeli military, and he provided a firsthand account confirming Israeli forces had opened fire on the medical convoy.

Dylan Winder, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ representative to the UN, condemned the attack as an outrage, describing it as the deadliest incident involving Red Cross or Red Crescent workers worldwide since 2017.

Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for an independent investigation, warning that the incident raises “further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military.”