Video appears to show Gaza ambulances had emergency lights on when IDF fired on them
Army vows ‘thorough’ probe after video contradicts its account; footage published by New York Times was reportedly discovered on phone of one of 15 medics said found in mass grave
The New York Times on Saturday published a video that appears to show Palestinian ambulances and a fire truck were clearly marked and had their emergency lights on when the IDF opened fire on them in southern Gaza on March 23, contradicting Israel’s account of the killing of 15 medics said to have been found in a mass grave this week.
The military, which accuses Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure, had said the vehicles were without headlights or emergency lights, were uncoordinated, and arrived on the scene shortly after a group of terror operatives.
Following the publication of the video, the IDF vowed to “thoroughly” investigate the incident.
The video was said to have been found on the cell phone of one of the medics. Officials from the Palestinian Red Crescent had told a news conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday that they would submit the video to the UN Security Council.
The Times said it had obtained the video from a senior UN diplomat who requested anonymity. The newspaper also said it had verified the time and place of the video. The name of the medic who filmed the video was not released because of his family’s fear of retaliation by the IDF, the Times said, citing the diplomat.
The video appears to have been filmed from the passenger seat of a vehicle.
It shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck driving down a road with their emergency lights flashing and then coming to a stop next to another vehicle that had strayed off the road.
https://twitter.com/farnazfassihi/status/1908416208061296660
As they approach the scene, a man can be heard saying: “Oh God, I hope they’re okay… There they are, lying around, they’re scattered everywhere. Quickly, quickly, it looks like an accident.”
Waiting on either side of the road are two ambulances, and a fire truck can be seen a few feet farther down the road. All vehicles are marked and have their emergency lights on. Three aid workers, two of them in reflective gear, go from those vehicles to the car that went off the road.
The man filming the video then exits his vehicle. Gunfire can be heard as he runs toward the derailed car. The man then can 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, according to the Times. In those five minutes, the Times said, a man can be heard saying in Arabic that there are Israelis in the area, and soldiers can be heard yelling unclear orders in Hebrew.
UN officials said on Monday that 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the United Nations and the Hamas-linked Palestinian Civil Defense had been recovered from a grave in the sand in the south of the Gaza Strip, along with mangled ambulances, apparently buried by IDF bulldozers.
Palestinian Red Crescent chief Dr. Younis Al-Khatib said in the UN news conference on Friday that the aid workers were “targeted from a very close range” and that Israel “kept us for eight days in the dark” on the bodies’ whereabouts.
The Times said that it had viewed satellite images from the scene from immediately after the attack that showed the vehicles had been moved off the road and clustered together.
Images taken two days later indicate that the vehicles were buried.
“Next to disturbed earth are three Israeli military bulldozers and an excavator. Additionally, bulldozers erected earthen barriers on the road in both directions from the mass grave,” the Times said.
The workers were said to have gone missing on March 23 en route to help people wounded in a strike on Rafah. According to the UN and the Red Crescent, the workers were unarmed.
A Palestinian paramedic who was present at an incident told Reuters he saw Israeli troops firing at emergency vehicles that he later saw stained with blood. Munther Abed, a volunteer for the Palestinian Red Crescent, said he was responding to a call with two colleagues near Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip when he was detained by the Israeli soldiers shortly before they opened fire on other emergency vehicles.
He said he had not been able to see exactly what happened when the soldiers opened fire.
The Palestinian Red Crescent describes Abed as “the lone survivor” of the incident.
Abed said he and colleagues had received a call to go out to help wounded people at around dawn following an air strike 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 told Reuters by phone from his house in Khan Younis, referring to shooting by Israeli soldiers.
After he was detained, he said he lost sight of his two colleagues.
As he was standing near the soldiers, he said 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 said. “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.”
On March 28, the IDF had acknowledged having fired on ambulances and fire engines, saying it identified them as “suspicious vehicles.”
Responding to the UN announcement on Monday, IDF international media spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the military “did not randomly attack an ambulance on March 23.” Soldiers opened fire after “uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals,” said Shoshani.
The IDF did ???????????? randomly attack an ambulance on March 23. Let me walk through what happened step-by-step:
1. Last Sunday, several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals. IDF troops then… https://t.co/VdtyXd8qj5
— LTC Nadav Shoshani (@LTC_Shoshani) March 31, 2025
He added that “following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military operative, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who took part in the October 7 massacre, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”
On Thursday, Shoshani said the incident “has been transferred to the General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism for investigation.”
The mechanism is an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents amid the war.
“The IDF places the utmost importance on maintaining communication with international organizations operating in Gaza and engages with them regularly,” Shoshani added.
On Saturday, aftethe videoeo was published, the IDF said that “the shooting toward the ambulance convoy in Tel Sultan on March 23 is in the process of an in-depth inquiry.”
“All of the claims, including the published documentation, will be thoroughly examined and in depth, to understand the conduct [of the troops] in the incident,” the military said in response to a query.
The incident came five days after Israel restarted intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending 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 gradually free hostages.
The deal was reached in January, some 15 months after the Gaza war was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.