Gaza: Palestine stated on Saturday that video footage showing the execution of 15 paramedics and aid workers in Rafah, southern Gaza, challenges Israeli forces’ assertions that ambulances were not randomly targeted.
According to Anadolu Agency, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued an official statement saying that a video posted by an American newspaper documenting the deliberate execution of 15 emergency and relief workers in March disproves Israeli claims of not randomly attacking ambulances or failing to recognize them due to a lack of lights or emergency signals. The ministry called it a fully documented crime, part of what it described as an ongoing genocide and forced displacement campaign against the Palestinian people. It accused the occupation forces of committing daily brutality against Palestinian civilians, humanitarian and UN personnel, medical workers, and journalists, with the intent to intimidate them and prevent aid from reaching Gaza.
The ministry further claimed that the occupation for
ces aim to destroy all forms and foundations of life in the Gaza Strip, rendering it uninhabitable and imposing forced displacement on Palestinian civilians. Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas stated that the footage reveals a horrific field execution crime carried out by the Zionist occupation army, targeting ambulance and civil defense crews while performing their humanitarian duty.
Hamas remarked that the shocking video is not just a tragic scene but irrefutable evidence of the occupation’s brutality, its violation of international laws and conventions, and its attempt to cover up the crime by burying victims in mass graves and erasing the truth. The organization called on the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and all people of conscience to document the crime and refer it to international courts, urging accountability for occupation leaders as war criminals.
The statement was a response to a viral video released Saturday, found on the phone of a Pales
tinian paramedic whose body was discovered in a mass grave with 14 colleagues after being executed by the Israeli army while performing their duties. On March 31, the Israeli army claimed the attack on the ambulances was not random, alleging that nine members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups were killed. However, on March 30, the Palestine Red Crescent Society announced discovering 15 bodies following the attack.
According to Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal, several civil defense team members were found with bound hands and feet and visible bullet wounds on their heads and torsos, suggesting execution at close range after being identified for their humanitarian work. One civil defense member had been decapitated, and the remaining bodies were found in pieces. More than 50,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s military onslaught since October 2023.