Medic survived Gaza ambulance shooting by pleading to IDF troops in Hebrew, Red Crescent says

The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent says that a paramedic who survived an attack that killed 15 aid workers was spared because he asked Israeli soldiers for mercy in Hebrew, adding that he hoped the man’s testimony would help win justice.

Assad Al-Nassasrah, a Red Crescent paramedic, survived shootings that killed 15 emergency and aid workers on March 23 in southern Gaza in an incident that drew international condemnation. Their bodies were found buried in a shallow grave a week later by Red Crescent and UN officials who accused Israeli forces of killing them.

Al-Nassasrah went missing and then was freed from Israeli detention on April 29 and has not yet publicly commented. One other paramedic survived.

Younis Al-Khatib, president of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, tells reporters in Geneva that Al-Nassasrah was spared after he pleaded in Hebrew and said his mother was a Palestinian citizen of Israel.

“What does Assad say in Hebrew? ‘Don’t shoot. I am Israeli.’ And the soldier got a bit confused,” he tells reporters. “That confusion … made him survive.”

“Assad will be a witness that can put all the Israeli stories in shambles,” he adds.

Asked how Al-Nassasrah was treated in custody, Al-Khatib says: “like a Palestinian”. He says Al-Nassasrah had been interrogated and that he had mental health issues, but did not elaborate further.

Social media footage shared by the Palestinian Red Crescent, dated the day after his release, showed Al-Nassasrah crying as he hugged medics and looking dazed while being examined in a Gaza hospital. Eight of those killed were from the PRCS, which provides medical aid in Gaza and is part of the world’s largest humanitarian network.

Al-Khatib says the organization was working with lawyers and considering formal submissions to international courts and the UN Security Council.

“We think the international community is responsible for providing justice to those killed,” he says. “We don’t train our people to go and die.”