PRCS says Israeli troops shot Gaza aid crew 'with intent to kill'
The PRCS revelation comes after "Israel" attacked southern Gaza, killing one journalist and injuring nine others.
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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 Israeli military fire on ambulances arrive at the facility. (AFP)
The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated Monday that 15 medics and rescuers murdered by Israeli troops in Gaza last month were shot in the upper body with "intent to kill."
The attack took place in the southern Gaza Strip on March 23, days into a renewed Israeli aggression on the strip, attracting worldwide condemnation as "Israel" uses the exhausted excuse of Palestinian Resistance fighters present in the vehicles.
The video footage exposing the Israeli occupation forces' execution of 15 medics in Rafah has forced "Israel" to backtrack on its fabricated narrative, claiming its lies were "unintentionally made".
Further claims were made and later debunked by video evidence, including that the ambulances did not have their emergency light on and that the Israeli forces came under fire. The later Israeli military report claimed that the Israeli forces hid the bodies and the ambulances under the sand "to prevent them from being eaten by wild animals."
The PRCS revelation comes after "Israel" attacked southern Gaza, killing one journalist and injuring nine others.
Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported that journalist Hilmi al-Faqawi and another young man, Yousef al-Khazindar, were martyred, while other journalists, including Ahmed Mansour, Hassan Islayh, Ahmed al-Agha, Mohammed Fayek, Abdullah al-Attar, Ihab al-Bardini, Mahmoud Awad, and Majed Qudaih, sustained injuries in the bombing of a tent.
Calling for an international investigation, the president of the Red Crescent in the occupied West Bank, Younis al-Khatib, insisted that autopsies of those killed in March reveal "all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill."
Israeli narrative debunked
The New York Times obtained 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, showing clearly marked ambulances and a fire truck with emergency lights activated as they came under heavy Israeli gunfire.
The Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, had 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.
However, a seven-minute video shot from inside a moving vehicle was recovered, depicting 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.
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.
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.