Why did Israeli military kill 15 Palestinian aid workers in Gaza? The Israel Defense Forces story keeps changing
Palestinian rescuers were worried as their convoy moved to the place along the dark road near Rafa, where they believed their colleagues were injured.
It was the evening of March 23, and even for the dangerous Gaza, the people in the vehicle seemed to realize that their rescue mission involved extreme dangers.
“Those assholes – they’re just targeting our team,” said Rifaat Radwan, a paramedic in a lead car that turns on the camera of a phone. The complete video tape was later released by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
Radwan's team heads to another group It was attacked by Israeli troops a few hours ago.
By the early morning, he and 14 other people – all paramedics or aid workers, will die, and their bodies buried their bodies in a massive grave next to the crashed vehicle.
For a week and a half, the IDF proved the attack justified, insisting that there were many Hamas militants among the first responders of the deceased, whose vehicles had been acting suspiciously and driving without emergency lights.
But Palestinian advocates say emerging video evidence – including videos of Radwan's phone call found at the scene – witness accounts show that at best the Israeli version of the incident, the omission of glare, and at worst, the total lie was about what happened that night.
The video seems to show the last moment
In Radwan's video, part of which was released by the New York Times, Palestinian Red Crescent workers in their vehicles talked to each other about their anxiety and even recited end-of-life prayers because they could not contact members who had previously disappeared from rescuers.
Recognizing the risk of Israeli ambush, it was suggested that several ambulances be formed on a line and make sure everyone is flashing with emergency lights to ensure maximum visibility.
But that won't make any difference. A few seconds after the ambulance convoy parked next to a vehicle crashing on the side of the road, arriving medical personnel were hit by a fire from an automatic weapon.
“They surrounded us! They killed us!” One of the medical staff was heard screaming in the video.
Hear others pray for life, including Radwan.
“Oh, Lord, accept me as a martyr and forgive me.” He said his final farewell to his mother.
There was more gunshots, and then silence. It took a full week to get from a team from the United Nations to enter the area and retrieve the body.
No explanation for initial misleading information
More than 10 days after the attack, officials insisted that Palestinian vehicles had been driving without lights in multiple IDF briefings.
them Also said Its ambush killed nine “terrorists” without providing any direct evidence. Later, the IDF said six members of the militant group were the dead, but did not provide evidence.
Eight members killed in the attack of the Palestinian Red Crescent were killed in the attack on Monday at a press conference in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, who released the entire 19 minutes of the final video of Radwan, with English subtitles. The group said the video was found on Radwan's phone call, who recovered from his body a week later.
After the full video was released, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer provided an updated account and detailed IDF positions.
“Despite the interests of opposing terrorist activities, just in case the Wanderland soldiers open fire in the distance towards vehicles moving in their direction,” Messer said.
“What are Hamas terrorists doing in ambulances?” he said.
Weekend transfer
Then, over the weekend, in a hurry briefing, an Israeli military spokesman said on condition of anonymity that he admitted that paramedics were “mistaken” identified as a threat and said the military would investigate the cause.
In another Social Media Posts MondayThe IDF said its preliminary investigation determined that its troops were fired due to “perceived threats” and that the fact-finding and assessment mechanism of the general staff would be investigated in a more in-depth manner.
The Israeli military is changing its description of the killing of 15 Gaza emergency workers as a videotape released by the Palestinian Red Crescent showed medical staff with clearly marked emergency vehicles and were shot by soldiers. Israel’s initial claim that soldiers had opened fire on vehicles that were approaching their position “suspiciously” in the darkness without lights or markings, contradicting the claims that the only known survivor of the incident was.
However, both statements explain why the IDF initially posted misleading information, and the story was changed only after the Radwan video was released.
“We asked the Israelites why they were killed,” said Younis al-Khatib, president of the association. “They were wearing it. [safety] gear. this [ambulance] The light is on.
“Why ambulance was destroyed after killing it? Why dig deeper [in the sand] Hide ambulance? Why are you hiding the body? ”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert added his voice to a growing call for independent external investigations on Monday. “It smells covered up,” he said. Olmert, a longtime enemy of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told the BBC that the Israeli military had a lot to explain.
“It looks bad, smells bad, it will bother me.”
An IDF spokesman said in a briefing that the soldiers did not expect the convoy to stop on the road and were surprised to see people going out and running around. Later, he said it was a procedure to approve burying bodies in mass graves to protect them from wildlife.
“No incident attempted to cover up the IDF. Instead, they called the United Nations immediately.” The IDF could not explain why the ambulance was buried.
A lonely survivor
The only survivor of the attack, 27-year-old Munther Jihad Abed told CBC freelance photographer Mohamed El Saife that the IDF did not work to verify who they were shooting.
“There is a direct gunfire in our car,” he said in an interview near Khan Younis. “I didn't hear my colleagues' voices – there was no sound except their last breath. I saw death.”
During a Ramallah press conference, Red Crescent officials said that despite many opportunities to do so, IDF soldiers deliberately chose not to confirm this.
“It's not an incident, it's multiple attacks,” said Red Crescent spokesman Nebal Farsakh.
“It started with targeting ambulances, you can see [on the video] On the roadside. Later, you'll see the moment against the ambulance convoy, and the last third attack was the ambulance, the fourth ambulance, which is supported on the other side. ”
“This stage of the war is not very popular”
During the last 18 months of the war, Israel has been repeatedly accused of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in vain.
In February 2025, in one of the deadliest events, IDF killed 112 people waiting for flour in the city of Gaza. At about the same time United Nations Expert Group Condemn Israel's repeated “massacres” including attacks on humanitarian aid convoys.
Israeli human rights group Yesh Din Reported in July last year Of the more than 664 complaints of Israeli military actions over a decade, only 6% led to investigations and only one ended the indictment.
The team concluded that the military's own assessment procedures used for such investigations “avoid proper and effective assessments.”
Although the massive deaths of Palestinian civilians have caused intense international anger in Israel, especially against humanitarian groups, criticism of the IDF and its practices has been generally downplayed.
Longtime activist Sarit Michaeli and Israeli human rights group B'tSelem said the fatal incident with caregivers could be a bigger test of the transparency of the IDF.
“This stage of the war is not very popular,” she told CBC News in an interview.
“I think many Israelis know that military operations don't restore the lives of hostages. And, as more and more people are willing to criticize the reasons for this war, people are willing to be more critical of what happened in the war, and killing caregivers is one of them.”
Michaeli said whether this means there will be an impact, which is another question.
U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged Israel's military campaign in Gaza and attempted to undermine the work of the International Criminal Court, an international mechanism to investigate the death of nursing staff.
Last year, Trump approved the court and its chief prosecutor after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
“Now, the ICC has no huge influence now and can be used to investigate or prosecute the case,” Michaeli said.
