Gazan medic says he saw Israeli troops firing on emergency vehicles near Rafah

A Palestinian paramedic who was present at an incident in which 15 of his colleagues were killed in southern Gaza last month says he saw Israeli troops firing at emergency vehicles that he later saw stained with blood.

Munther Abed, a volunteer for the Palestinian Red Crescent, says he was responding to a call with two colleagues near Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip on March 23 when he was detained by the Israeli soldiers shortly before they opened fire on other emergency vehicles.

He says he had not been able to see exactly what happened when the soldiers opened fire.

Abed says he and colleagues had received a call to go out to help wounded people at around dawn following an airstrike in the Al-Hashasheen area in Rafah, close to the border with Egypt.

“We moved right away, it was me and two other colleagues. As soon as we arrived there, we came under fire and they detained us,” he tells Reuters by phone from his house in Khan Younis, referring to shooting by Israeli soldiers.

After he was detained, he says he lost sight of his two colleagues.

As he was standing near the soldiers, he says he saw other emergency vehicles approaching the Israeli soldiers’ position.

“I could see the vehicle of the Civil Emergency. The soldiers began shooting at the vehicles, they fired heavily,” he says. “It was dark and I couldn’t see what happened to the people there, but they [the soldiers] fired heavily. They asked me to duck down and they were firing heavily. I felt as if the bullets were hitting me personally.”