Red Crescent says autopsies show slain Gaza medics were shot ‘with intent to kill’
Medical org calls for international commission of inquiry into shooting of first responders, says they were buried without ‘human dignity’; IDF says at least 6 were Hamas operatives
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Monday that an autopsy showed that 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill.”
The killings occurred in the southern Gaza Strip on March 23, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled enclave, when troops operating in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah opened fire on a convoy of vehicles that they deemed to be “suspicious.”
Palestinians have accused Israeli forces of attempting to cover up the incident by burying the bodies in a mass grave, and claims emerged that some of the bodies had their hands tied and were seemingly shot dead from close range, which the IDF has denied.
In the initial findings from its investigation of the incident, the military asserted that at least six of those killed had been posthumously identified as Hamas operatives. It has not yet named the operatives, and is expected to do so only once its probe is concluded.
The IDF has further insisted that troops did not attempt to cover up the shootings but rather had informed the UN of the location of the bodies, which were buried in a mass grave.
In total, eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Hamas-linked Palestinian Civil Defense, and one employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, were killed in the incident, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.
Their bodies were found buried near the site of the shooting in what OCHA described as a mass grave.
Dr. Younis Al-Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the West Bank, told journalists in Ramallah on Monday that an autopsy of the first responders revealed that they had been shot “with intent to kill.”
“There has been an autopsy of the martyrs from the Red Crescent and civil defense teams,” he said. “We cannot disclose everything we know, but I will say that all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill.”
He said that the Red Crescent was calling for “the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing.”
“Why did you hide the bodies?” Khatib said of the Israeli forces involved in the attack.
Amid international condemnation, the military’s probe into the killing of the 15 rescue workers was presented on Monday to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir by the head of the Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor.
The IDF said that Zamir then ordered the General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism, an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents during the war, to “deepen and complete” the probe in the coming days and present it to him.
“The IDF is investigating the incident, which took place in a combat zone, in order to reach the truth,” the military said.
The military reiterated that “the initial investigation revealed that the force opened fire due to a sense of threat following a previous exchange of fire in the area. Also, six Hamas terrorists were identified among those killed in the incident.”
According to OCHA, the first team, which it said comprised rescuers and not Hamas terrorists, was hit by Israeli forces at dawn.
In the hours that followed, additional rescue and aid teams searching for their colleagues were also struck, OCHA said.
After the incident came to light, the IDF initially claimed that the ambulances were traveling without any headlights or emergency lights, and were uncoordinated.
A video found on the phone of one of the slain medics later surfaced, published by The New York Times, and appeared to show that the emergency vehicles were clearly marked and had their emergency lights on when the IDF opened fire.
The IDF has acknowledged that, based on the video, its initial statement asserting that the ambulances had had their lights off appeared to be incorrect, noting that it was based on the testimony of soldiers involved in the incident.
A longer, 19-minute video segment, taken from the same phone, was published by the Red Crescent on Monday.
While the name of the medic who filmed the attack was not initially released due to his family’s fear of retaliation by the IDF, The New York Times identified him on Monday as Red Crescent paramedic Rifaat Radwan.
In the video, said by the Times to have been taken from one of the ambulances dispatched to search for the first missing ambulance, Radwan can be heard saying: “We’re calling their phones and nobody is answering.”
“Ezzedine usually answers, and so do Mustafa and Munther,” he said, according to the English captions provided by the Times.
After happening upon the ambulance of their missing colleagues, the medics exit their vehicles, and gunfire can be heard as they run toward it. Radwan can then be heard reciting the Shahada, a Muslim prayer typically said before death.
At that point, the video goes dark, but the gunfire continues for five minutes. In those five minutes, the Times said, Radwan can be heard saying in Arabic that there are Israelis in the area, and soldiers can be heard yelling unclear orders in Hebrew.
According to the news outlet, Radwan’s final words before the video cuts off are “The Israeli soldiers are coming, the Israeli soldiers are coming.”
In a presentation of its initial findings on the attack, the military said on Saturday that the incident occurred at around 6 a.m. on March 23.
It said that Golani soldiers operating under the 14th Armored Brigade had set up an ambush on a road in Tel Sultan at around 4 a.m., and that several ambulances and civilians passed by without incident.
At around 4:30 a.m., a Hamas police vehicle drove through the area, and the Golani soldiers exchanged fire with the operatives inside, killing one and capturing two others, the IDF said. The Hamas vehicle remained on the side of the road.
Then, at around 6 a.m., the military said a convoy of ambulances arrived in the area and the soldiers opened fire, perceiving them as a threat. Drone operators flying a UAV overhead had reported to the Golani soldiers that the vehicles were moving toward them in a suspicious manner.
The army said that troops then collected the bodies of the 15 medical workers in one spot, covered them in sand and marked the burial spot.
It said that burying bodies in this way was an approved and regular practice during fighting in Gaza, to prevent wild dogs and other animals from eating the corpses.
The Red Crescent said, however, that the bodies had been buried “in a brutal and degrading manner that violates human dignity.”
The IDF also claimed that it promptly notified the UN of the burial spot, but that it took several days for the bodies to be recovered, in coordination with the military.
The UN has said that the mangled ambulances were found buried alongside the bodies. According to the IDF probe, an armored D9 bulldozer pushed the ambulances off the road to open it up, crushing the vehicles in the process.
In Ramallah, Khatib dismissed the accusation that the ambulances were being used by Hamas operatives, saying Israel had failed “to prove even once in 50 years that the Red Crescent or its crews carry or use weapons.”
According to the Times, the IDF declined to answer as to whether or not the men in the ambulances were armed.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has said that the incident was the single most deadly attack on Red Cross or Red Crescent workers anywhere since 2017.
According to the United Nations, at least 1,060 healthcare workers have been killed in the 18 months since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, during which some 1,200 people were killed, and 251 were taken hostage by terrorists.
The IDF says that Hamas operatives regularly operate from within medical facilities.
The incident in the Tel Sultan neighborhood came five days after Israel restarted intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, shattering a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas.
According to the terms of the January 19 ceasefire deal, the sides were to launch negotiations over the second phase a few weeks into the first, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to do so, insisting that the war would not end until Hamas’s governing and military capabilities had been demolished. Meanwhile, Hamas rejected a series of offers to extend the first phase while continuing to free hostages gradually.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.