Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On

Aid workers are shown in a video being shot and killed in Gaza while ambulance lights are on. The U.N. has said Israel killed the workers. The video appears to contradict Israel’s version of events, which said the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals.
A video, discovered on the cellphone of a paramedic who was found along with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza in late March, shows that the ambulances and fire truck that they were traveling in were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.
Officials from the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a news conference on Friday at the United Nations moderated by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies that they had presented the nearly seven-minute recording, which was obtained by The New York Times, to the U.N. Security Council.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said earlier this week that Israeli forces did not “randomly attack” an ambulance, but that several vehicles “were identified advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals toward Israeli troops, prompting them to shoot. Colonel Shoshani said earlier in the week that nine of those killed were Palestinian militants.
Israel did not respond to a request for comment on the video in time for the first publication of this article, but on Saturday, it issued a statement to The Times saying that the episode was “under thorough examination.”
“All claims, including the documentation circulating about the incident, will be thoroughly and deeply examined to understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation,” it said.
The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.
The Times confirmed that the video was shot in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23 and that it was recorded there. It shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck clearly marked with on-board headlights and flashing lights driving south on a road north of Rafah in the early morning. The footage was taken from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.
The convoy stops when it encounters a vehicle that had veered onto the side of the road — one ambulance had been sent earlier to aid wounded civilians and had come under attack. The brand-new rescue vehicles deviate to the roadside. Rescue workers, at least two of whom can be seen wearing uniforms, are seen exiting a fire truck and an ambulance marked with the emblem of the Red Crescent and approaching the ambulance derailed to the side.
Then, sounds of intense gunfire break out.
A barrage of gunshots is seen and heard in the video hitting the convoy.
The camera shakes, the video goes dark. However, the rattling of gunfire and the audio continue for five minutes. A man says in Arabic that there are Israelis present.
The paramedic filming is heard on the video reciting, over and over, the “shahada,” or a Muslim declaration of faith, which people recite when facing death. The paramedic can be heard saying, “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger.” He asks God for forgiveness and says he knows he is going to die.
“Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose — to help people,” he said. He declares, “Allahu akbar,” God is great. A commotion of distressed aid workers and soldiers yelling Hebrew commands can be heard in the background. It is not clear what they are saying.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society spokeswoman, Nebal Farsakh, said in an interview from the West Bank city of Ramallah that the paramedic who filmed the video was later found with a bullet in his head in the mass grave. According to the U.N. diplomat, his name has not yet been made public because he has relatives living in Gaza who are concerned about Israeli retaliation. At the news conference, held at the U.N. headquarters, the president of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Dr. Younis Al-Khatib, and his deputy, Marwan Jilani, told reporters that the evidence the society has collected — including the video and audio from the episode, and forensic examination of the bodies — contradicted Israel’s version of events.
The deaths of the aid workers, who went missing on March 23, has drawn international scrutiny and condemnation in recent days. The aid workers, according to the United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent, were not armed and posed no threat. “Their bodies have been targeted from a very close range,” said Dr. Khatib, adding that Israel did not provide information on the missing medics’ whereabouts for days. “They knew exactly where they were because they killed them,” he said. Their colleagues and families were in pain as well. They kept us in the dark for eight days. It took five days after the rescue vehicles came under attack and fell silent for the United Nations and Red Crescent to negotiate with the Israeli military for safe passage to search for the missing people. On Sunday, rescue teams found 15 bodies, most in a shallow mass grave along with their crushed ambulances and a vehicle marked with the U.N. logo.
The area where the convoy stops in the video was captured in a satellite image a few hours later and analyzed by The Times. At that point, the five ambulances and the fire truck had been moved off the road and clustered together.
A fresh satellite image taken two days later revealed that the vehicles appeared to be submerged. Next to disturbed earth are three Israeli military bulldozers and an excavator. From the mass grave, bulldozers also erected earthen barriers on the road in both directions. One member of the Palestinian Red Crescent is still missing, and Israel has not said whether he is detained or has been killed, Dr. Khatib stated Dr. Four of the five aid workers examined by forensic doctor Ahmad Dhair in Gaza’s Nasser hospital were killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the head, torso, and joints, according to Dhair. According to the United Nations and Red Crescent Society, one Red Crescent paramedic in the convoy was detained by the Israeli military before being released. He provided a witness account of the Israeli military shooting at the ambulances. Dylan Winder, the representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to the U.N., called the incident an outrage and said it represented the single deadliest attack on Red Cross and Red Crescent Society workers anywhere in the world since 2017.
Volker Türk, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the council that an independent investigation must be conducted, and that the episode raises “further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military.”